Opinion

Legal property rights

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-11 07:53

That the State Council is reportedly going to review its 2001 regulations on urban real estate demolition and relocation is a welcome, though belated, start of a possibly difficult process.

The regulations were badly in need of repair to be legitimate. As many have observed, they contradict the country's property rights law.

While the law promises to safeguard lawful property ownership, the 2001 regulations bestow undefined, and consequently unrestrained, latitude on local governments and developers in demolishing and relocating urban structures in their way. Such latitude, while guaranteeing efficiency in the country's sweeping urban renovation programs, led to infringements upon civil rights.

We understand the anxiety of urban planners and even some developers on demolition and relocation, and public opinion has not always been fair to them. We have heard about cases where they were actually subjects of extortion by calculating property owners. But it is also true that, under the 2001 regulations, the balance is conspicuously tilted in their favor.

Article 42 of the Real Right Law allows requisition of premises owned by individual citizens. But it should be for public interest, and on the basis of due procedure. The regulations, however, are ambiguous about that.

Without spelling out what public interest refers to, society has no safeguard when governments and developers collude to promote commercial undertakings in the name of public good. The regulation leaves a lethal blank for fraudulence by not mentioning what kind of premises can be forcefully demolished, and for what purposes. It is unfair to civilian property owners because the right to interpretation rests with those who are determined to demolish.

Given its one-sided accent on guaranteeing smooth implementation of government-sponsored renovation projects, as well as neglect of the legal rights of property owners, and its conflict with the property rights legislation in particular, the 2001 document is anachronistic jurisprudence.

Since the central authorities have shown willingness to redefine it, the next question is how far they are ready to go, which boils down to how they perceive the balance between public and individual interests.

Whatever the case, the present pattern, where owner rights are in obvious disadvantage, is unacceptable.

No matter how anxious and determined we are to proceed with renovation or development programs, we need to pay due respect to all legal property rights.