Just Terms
Typically, a determination of just terms based on the market value of the property at the time of acquisition will be sufficient to satisfy the requirement of just terms. Unlike the "just compensation" requirement in the Fifth Amendment, however, "just terms" imports no equivalence of market value. The arrangements offered must be "fair", or such that a legislature could reasonably regard them as "fair". However, this judgment of "fairness" must take account of all the interests affected, not just those of the dispossessed owner.
The requirement of "just terms" does not necessarily require that a compensation package be presented as part of the acquisition scheme. It is sufficient that the scheme provides adequate procedures for determining fair compensation. However, the Court may scrutinise such procedures closely to ensure their adequacy.
There may be some acquisitions of property to which section 51(xxxi) does not apply.
Section 51(xxxi) is an exception to the norm for interpretation of the subsections of section 51, that one grant of power cannot be used to "read down" another. In this case, however, the Court will not allow another grant of power to be read so broadly as to circumvent the specific limitation to the power granted by section 51(xxxi).
Read more about this topic: Section 51(xxxi) Of The Constitution Of Australia
Famous quotes containing the word terms:
“The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to anyone who will take it of me.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“My father and I were always on the most distant terms when I was a boy—a sort of armed neutrality, so to speak. At irregular intervals this neutrality was broken, and suffering ensued; but I will be candid enough to say that the breaking and the suffering were always divided up with strict impartiality between us—which is to say, my father did the breaking, and I did the suffering.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)