ABSTRACT
Transfer of property is governed by a contract for sale, and the striking feature of such a contract is the willingness to sell and to buy on each side. The right to property ensures that nobody is forced to dispose of his property against his will. However, the compulsory purchase of property for public purposes is recognized in almost all the jurisdictions. This exception to the general rule is justified by the power of eminent domain. This term seems to have originated in 1525 with Hugo Grotius, who wrote of this power in his work De Jure Belli et Pacis. Grotius describes this power in the following way:
The property of subjects is under the eminent domain of the State, so that the State or he who acts for it may use and even alienate and destroy such property, not only in the case of extreme necessity, in which even private persons have a right over the property of others, but for ends of public utility, to which ends those who founded civil society must be supposed to have intended that private ends should give way. But it is to be added that when this is done the State is bound to make good the loss to those who lose their property. 2
