Some thoughts as to the present day understanding of public property

Abstract

In Spanish Civil Law the property of her Public Institutions has been traditionally classified as either public utilities or "inheritances". Whereas the first are covered by special laws, given their public use or service utility nature, the second are neither more nor less than the private property of those Public Institutions they are deeded to, who can thus use them to their own benefit as would any private heir. At present, the extraordinary rise in land value and a falling away of returns to the idea of State Patrimony as each public institution does its level best to squeeze the maximum benefit from its "inherited" stock. In so doing, they add further pressure upon the already sepeculation-ridden land market against whose soaring excesses the very Constitution bids them struggle. The glaring contradiction as between the doing of the Public Weal on behalf of its institutions and this basically "private" management of their entail is here seen to call for a reexamination of this last from a constitutional standpoint and in the light of the People's requiring the same. The paper underlines the need to go into this state of affairs and offers ideas as to just how the administrators of such common wealth held by Spain's Institutions should go about administering this.