The quote belongs to the lawyer Theodor Stimson, a lawyer from the National University of Asunción and with a master’s degree in law from the University of Chicago Law School. Speaking to a morning newspaper in the capital, the jurist stated that those who occupy the strip of domain of the Ferrocarril del Paraguay SA -former Ferrocarril Carlos Antonio López and even older, Ferrocarril Central del Paraguay- “are usurpers of public property founded on sovereign acts” .
All the procedures of constitution, nationalization and privatization to which assets linked to the Paraguayan railway have been and continue to be subjected refer necessarily and inescapably to the land on which the railway tracks passed, temporibus illis, part of whose route it is intended to return to life with the shaken suburban train project.
To get an idea, let’s look at the terms contained in a 1906 law, which regulated the award of the railway to the company The Paraguay Central Railway Co., from which the Central Railway of Paraguay (FCCP) was established. Article 7 establishes that “the PE will grant the company a formal title deed over the strip of land occupied by the iron line from Asunción to Villarrica.” That adjudication included “the ditches, their sides, chamfers, ramps, embankment settlement bases, bridges and other affirmed works…”. The following details are exhaustive.
After the bankruptcy of the English company, the Government took over the railway in 1961. For this purpose, Law 714 of August 21 of that year was enacted. The State thus received the complete package -obsolete but complete- that included all its buildings, machinery and, of course, the strip of domain without which the railway would have no meaning.
In the opinion of the cited jurisconsult, the obstruction of the railway domain strip produces what in administrative law is known as “opportunity cost”, which is when a company stops producing something due to well-defined factors, in this case, immobilization of part of the company’s assets. The usurpers must vacate the invaded land and bear the costs of clearing it.
Here, the politicians have inverted the mandate: they are going to force the State to indemnify the usurpers.
The world upside down.
