Lao Cai: Opinions of intellectuals for the draft Land Law (amended)
After nearly a month collecting of opinions on the draft Land Law, more than 100 opinions of intellectuals in the province on the contents of the Land Law (amended) recorded.
View of the meeting of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee in Lao Cai province to collect comments on the draft Land Law (amended)
The comments were synthesized by the Union of Science and Technology Associations then submitted to the Provincial People's Committee. The Vietnam Fatherland Front of Lao Cai province is in charge of proposing to the drafting agency in order to improve the draft law.
Most of the participants highly appreciated the completion of this draft (amended) Land Law. However, the draft still has a number of shortcomings, many of which overlap with the provisions of other relevant laws such as the Law on Planning, the Law on Inspection, the Law on supervision activities of the National Assembly and the People's Council, the Law on Organizations and Management, Law on Organization of Local Government...
The draft also contains some contradictions within the provisions of the draft or with some provisions of other Laws. For example, in Clause 4, Article 121 stipulates that “The People’s Committee of the province shall base itself on the master plan, land use plan, detailed construction planning, demand for land use in the locality in order to specify the quotas for changing the use purpose of different types of land in accordance with the actual situation of the locality”; however, in Clause 3, Article 116, it stipulates “… according to the quota set by the Government” and according to Article 20, the Law on Forestry stipulates a specific limit for the provincial level.
In Clause 1, Article 122 also stipulates that "authority to change land use purpose" is only "Resolution of the Provincial People's Council"; however, according to Article 20, the Law on Forestry still has the authority of the National Assembly, the Prime Minister... Therefore, the draft needs to continue to be studied and supplemented for synchronization among the articles, clauses and the Laws that have taken effect.
Regarding to rights and obligations of Vietnamese residing abroad, all opinions stated that in fact there are many cases where parents have a lot of houses and land (due to reclaiming, inheriting from grandparents). For many reasons and circumstances, their children have to live and work abroad. They still want to enjoy this inheritance, do not want to sell it or give it to someone else to hold, so that they can have a place to visit their homeland regularly. Therefore, it is advisable to add a regulation allowing overseas Vietnamese to inherit residential land and houses (not limited to a single house or a single land plot) to Clause 1, Article 47. This is consistent with the provisions on the rights of land users to be inherited or donated (Clause 1, Article 28 of the draft) and in line with current reality.
About compensation, support and resettlement when the State recovers land (Chapter VII), it is considered to be quite reasonable and close to reality. However, in the process of implementation, the support and resettlement of people whose land has been recovered has not been satisfactory, leading to people's disagreement and frustration, giving rise to disputes, complaints, land denunciations.
Therefore, the draft Land Law (amended) should institutionalize regulations to ensure the rights of people whose land is acquired, specifying the criteria of what is "better than the old place", taking into account the nature of the work of the person being revoked, price slippage, job creation after the recall...
Regulations on "Land price bracket" are identified as the most important and complicated issue today, so the comments all said that the draft needs to "reinforce" more regulations on "Land price bracket". Specifically, the law must clearly state the requirement "to have a land pricing mechanism according to market principles, ensuring objectivity, accuracy and not being influenced by interest groups" following the spirit of Resolution 18/NQ-TW. This draft Land Law (amended) is considered as moving from the "top-down approach to land prices" to "based on the market to calculate land prices bracket".
The draft also outlined five methods for calculating land prices and the laws also guide how to apply these methods in specific conditions. This is a new step with more updated, but not a real breakthrough solution because this valuation method alone has not solved the root of the problem.
Regarding comments on the "settlement of land" provisions in Article 224 of the draft, the opinions strongly agree with the statement of "reconciliation" of land disputes is one of the methods of dispute settlement encouraged by the State. However, the draft only stipulates the settlement of disputes through mediation at the grassroots level at the commune-level People's Committee where the disputed land is located, or at the court. Currently, there is a mechanism to address disputes by commercial mediation. The commercial mediation mechanism will be used if provided for by law. Therefore, it is necessary to supplement commercial mediation that can be used in land dispute mediation to increase the choice and effectiveness of the method of resolving land disputes through conciliate.
The enthusiastic and valuable opinions of the intellectuals who contributed to the Draft Land Law (amended) were received, synthesized and sent by the Provincial People's Committee and Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Lao Cai province. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Drafting Board of the Land Law (amended) project will study and report to the National Assembly in the coming time./.
