Rule Subject to Objection
The rule subject to objection stipulates that if the lawsuit filed for the determination of the expropriation price is not concluded within four months, legal interest shall be charged on the determined price as of the end of this period.
Grounds for Application
In the application decision, in summary, it was argued that the expropriation price was determined as of the date of the lawsuit, but the fact that the legal interest started to be charged four months after the date of the lawsuit pursuant to the subject rule prevented the payment of the real value of the immovable to the owner, and that the rule was unconstitutional.
Evaluation of the Court
In cases where the expropriation price is paid late, the imposition of legal interest is one of the instruments to ensure the preservation of the economic value of the price in question. However, in order for this instrument to be deemed compatible with the requirements of Article 46 of the Constitution, the expropriation price must cover the value lost due to inflation.
The rule subject to objection states that only legal interest shall be paid for the expropriation price paid late. There is no regulation regarding the damages to be incurred due to inflation and exceeding the legal interest. Especially in high inflationary periods, it will not be possible to compensate the value losses caused by inflation between the amount owed by the state due to expropriation and the amount finally received by the creditor right holder. Therefore, the right holder will not be able to receive the value of the expropriated immovable property in accordance with the real compensation criterion.
On the other hand, in the expropriation price determination and registration lawsuit filed by the administration, the expropriation price is determined as of the date of the lawsuit. However, with the rule subject to objection, the starting date of interest is set as the date of the end of the fourth month of the proceedings. In this case, it is clear that the expropriation price will be paid at a later date than the date of actual allocation, deemed to be expropriated and determination of the fair value based on the expropriation, and that the right holder may suffer an economic loss beyond what is reasonable due to the effect of inflation in the four-month period between the date of determination of the price and the starting date of interest.
In this respect, it has been evaluated that the rule, which does not take into account the aforementioned constitutional elements and does not meet the constitutional criterion of real reciprocity, is contrary to the provision stated in Article 13 of the Constitution that the restriction cannot be contrary to the word of the Constitution.
For the reasons explained above, the Constitutional Court decided that the rule is unconstitutional and cancelled.