New law to help ease land disputes

New law to help ease land disputes

The draft revised Land Law has proven one of the most contentious issues under debate during the current session of the National Assembly. Former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Professor Dang Hung Vo provided a commentary on the emanded law to VIR.

It’s been a long time since the original draft of the revised land law was first issued and different points of view on the revised law were expressed through conferences and the National Assembly. This is quite normal, because every person has the right to express their own point of view. The important thing is to consolidate the revised land law and deal with any unresolved issues.

It’s obvious that land management is about making the use of the country’s land more efficient and equitable.

In Vietnam, this goal is easy to agree. All criteria such as ownership, use rights or land use zoning, land financial management, land registration all amount to that. All other objectives such as the stricter implementation of the law are also aimed at higher efficiency in economic development and social sustainability.

However, there are obviously problems that need to be addressed. Firstly, the risk of corruption is very high in Vietnam. Gaps in the current legal regulations on land management have been the focus of complaints in several surveys and reports. Secondly, large numbers of the public have complained about land-use issues, with 70 per cent of the complaints related to the value of land compensation, financial support and resettlement.

Corruption in land management is nothing less than people using the authority handed to them by the government to exploit the value of the land they were tasked to look after, but instead have used for their own individual financial gain.

Complaints of corruption focus on land use zoning, acquisitions, leasing or evaluations.

Thirdly, fairness in the application and access to land rights for vulnerable groups such as farmers, the poor, ethnic minorities and women have not been ensured. These groups need the protection of the law because they can not defend their rights.

All these issues straddle the boundary between economic development and social sustainability. A rapidly developing economy based on an unstable society is like building a beautiful castle on foundations of sand.

It’s obvious from this, crucial issues needed to be changed in the revised Land Law.

Firstly, we must consider land repossession or compulsory land purchasing by the state. This is a method used to accumulate land in the interests of economic development.

Even when land is correctly evaluated, it’s not a guarantee that people will be better off, as without their land, many people lack any other way of surviving.

The ease in which land can be repossessed also causes a loss to agricultural land which hasn’t guaranteed the development of industrial projects in some areas.

The revised land law aims to expand the scope of the state to repossess land and then to put the land for auction with restrictions on negotiations between the developers and the land users. In my opinion this should be changed because it revealed disadvantages in the past and led to conflicts.

In principle, we need to limit the way in that the government repossesses land and improve the way negotiations are conducted. This way will create greater consensus between all sides.

In the past decade this negotiating mechanism has faced remarkable challenges. In many cases, the investors have successfully negotiated with land users and often 70 per cent of the land has been secured, however they have not been able to secure the remaining 30 per cent they may require, since the land users have charged very high prices, even when that land belongs to the area which is suited for non-agricultural use.

Ho Chi Minh City municipal authorities have suggested to the government many times that the state should exercise its right and repossess the land in such cases, but the proposals have yet to be agreed.

We can either choose for the state to repossess the land, or to negotiate between land users and developers; either way, there needs to be better types of negotiations and the state will only confiscate the land in cases where the land must be taken for public use.

When implementing the compensation process for land users, we must ensure one thing, and that is we revise the slogan which states that the new home must provide better living conditions than the old one, to one in which the former land owners are provided with better living standards in general.

This should be the responsibility of the investors or developers. While the confiscated land is under development, the developers should provide some subsidy to those who have lost their income generating opportunities.

Secondly, the state has to decide the value of compensation based on the real market value of the land.

According to current regulations, the state regulates the land price, which in theory is supposed to reflect the market price. Obviously the question is how to make those prices fair. In general, the current administrative system is regarded as being unfair since it is often tied up in red tape and corruption.

One of the solutions to make the land price fairer, is like in many other countries, they separate the right to impose a land price and the right to decide on whether the land needs to be reclaimed for use by the state.

Firstly, the land evaluation must be based on the market value, and such a price should be determined by professional organisations. This will avoid the increasing number of disputes raised between the authorities and land users.

Then, the land price will be decided finally by an independent organisation or council, which is separate from the provincial people’s committees who would only have the right to decide on repossession and land use.

If an independent organ is set up to evaluate the land price, it must be at a central level.

Thirdly, land use rights for vulnerable groups must be ensured.

Poor people, ethnic minorities and farmers have usually relied on agricultural land for their livelihoods. Therefore, farmers are in need of a non-time limited mechanism for land use in order to settle and become better and more experienced farmers.

The revised land law has expanded both the time and the land quota. This is better than the current law but it has not yet amounted to a final fair deal for farmers.

According to current regulations, the state is responsible for providing new land in cases of forced purchases and the relocated owner cannot transfer their land for ten years. The revised land law maintains this regulation.

The reality of Vietnam has shown that land is the basic method to link communities. The mechanism to provide land for the community in the countryside is a good way to make it more efficient.

It is hard to develop sustainable development policies. We must change and adapt new solutions with the aim to provide a more efficient legal system for land issues, otherwise the revised land law would be merely an amended version of the current articles.

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