Affirming the regime of public ownership of land

Continuing the working program, on the morning of June 17, the National Assembly discussed in the hall a number of contents with different opinions of the draft Land Law (amended).

Chairman of the National Assembly's Economic Committee Nguyen Van Giau presented a report explaining, accepting and revising the draft Land Law (amended). (Photo: Nhan Sang/VNA)

Nearly 7 million public comments on the draft Land Law (amended)

The report on explanation, acceptance and revision of the draft Land Law (amended) presented by Chairman of the National Assembly's Economic Committee Nguyen Van Giau said that at the 4th session, the National Assembly gave opinions on the draft Land Law (amended). The draft Land Law (amended) includes 14 chapters and 192 articles. Compared to the 2003 Land Law, the draft Land Law (amended) has 6 more chapters and 46 articles.

Based on the opinions of the National Assembly deputies at the 4th session and the opinions of the National Assembly Standing Committee at the 13th and 14th sessions, the National Assembly Standing Committee issued Resolution No. 563/NQ-UBTVQH13 assigning the Government to organize the collection of public opinions on the draft Land Law (amended).

The draft Land Law (amended) for public consultation has 14 chapters and 206 articles, an increase of 14 articles compared to the draft Law submitted to the National Assembly at the 4th session, which has codified the provisions for stable application in practice, including provisions on the scope of regulation, subjects of application, interpretation of terms, principles of land use, land users, persons responsible to the State for land use; persons responsible to the State for land assigned for management, encouragement of investment in land, land classification; rights and responsibilities of the State for land; land use planning and plans; land allocation, land lease, change of land use purpose; land recovery, compensation, support, resettlement; land registration, issuance of Certificates of land use rights, house ownership rights and other assets attached to land; land finance, land prices; land information system and land database; regime of land use; rights and obligations of land users; administrative procedures on land; supervision, inspection, settlement of disputes, complaints, denunciations and handling of violations of land laws.

After 2 months of organizing public opinion collection (from February 1, 2013 to March 31, 2013), the synthesis report on comments on the draft Land Law (amended) from ministries, branches, agencies, localities, organizations and individuals shows that there were 6,958,848 comments on the draft Land Law (amended).

The Draft Land Law (amended) after receiving and adjusting according to people's opinions has 14 chapters and 210 articles (an increase of 4 articles compared to the Draft for people's opinions).

Regarding the people's ownership of land, the Report on Explanation, Acceptance and Revision of the Draft Law on Land (amended) clearly stated that the majority of people's opinions affirmed the people's ownership of land. Continuing to stipulate people's ownership of land is consistent with the nature of our social system.

Accepting the proposal to add a principled provision to affirm the regime of public ownership of land in Chapter I to serve as a legal basis for the provisions of the draft Law, Article 4. Land ownership stipulates: “Land is owned by the public with the State representing the owner. The State grants land use rights to land users according to the provisions of this Law.”

Strict regulations to avoid abuse in land acquisition

Through discussion, many opinions agreed with the regulations on land recovery for the purposes of national defense, security, national interests, public interests and implementation of socio-economic development projects... However, delegate Nguyen Thanh Thuy (Hau Giang) suggested that there should be stricter regulations to prove that projects are truly for national interests, public interests... to avoid cases of taking advantage of this regulation to recover land.

Agreeing with the view that land is a special resource and means of production owned by the entire people, delegate Nguyen Thanh Thuy agreed with the view of land recovery stipulated in Chapter 6. However, according to the delegate, in cases of land recovery with houses and other properties attached to residential land, the state must purchase them. Explaining this issue, the delegate said that houses and other properties are the property of the people, so the state cannot recover them and even more so cannot consider them as compensation properties.

Delegates proposed specific regulations in the law on the State's land recovery and requisition of houses and other assets attached to land in cases of land use for national defense, security, national interests, public interests and implementation of socio-economic development projects.

Sharing the same view, delegate Tran Ngoc Vinh (Hai Phong) also said that assets attached to land such as houses and architectural works are assets owned by the people, not by the State.

The delegate requested the drafting committee to clarify the legal basis when stipulating the recovery of assets attached to land owned by the people. The delegate emphasized the need to ensure harmony between the goal of land recovery for socio-economic development and people's security. If the issue of people's security is neglected, the goal of socio-economic development will be difficult to achieve, causing complaints, disputes and complications in society.

Assessing that compensation and resettlement support when the State reclaims land is the key to the situation of land disputes, delegate Tran Ngoc Vinh proposed to comprehensively amend the regulations on compensation and resettlement support when the State reclaims land. When calculating compensation and resettlement, it is necessary to pay attention to the livelihood of people whose land is reclaimed; there are special regulations applicable to subjects such as the elderly and people past working age.

Delegates proposed to study and apply a fair mechanism: land for land, house for house; people do not have to pay more money, at the same time the state will support more funding so that people can soon stabilize their lives in their new place; increase the level of support for farmers whose agricultural land has been recovered, and require vocational training and job conversion for farmers after land recovery.

Delegate Le Thi Cong (Ba Ria-Vung Tau) analyzed that in reality, socio-economic development projects that require investors to negotiate with people on prices will be difficult to implement, affecting the socio-economic development goals. To facilitate land recovery for socio-economic development purposes and create consensus among people with land in the project, the delegate agreed to unify land valuation consultation according to the principles and methods of land valuation stipulated in Article 110 of the draft Law. Land prices during construction must be consistent with the common market prices of land types with the same purpose of use.

Delegate Ton Thi Ngoc Hanh (Dak Nong) proposed that it is necessary to study regulations on land compensation once or multiple times so that people can choose the appropriate option; when compensating, it is necessary to pay attention to the price inflation factor.

Land use planning must be sustainable.

Regarding the planning period and land use plan (Article 37), there are opinions suggesting considering extending the planning period and planning period to suit real estate projects with a normal land use period of 50 years or more.

Delegate Nguyen Cao Son (Hoa Binh) said that the regulations on planning time and land allocation time are contradictory, causing difficulties in implementation. According to the delegate, the draft regulation stipulates that during the land allocation time, enterprises must relocate their production facilities due to changes in planning, which will cause difficulties and losses, and lose business opportunities for enterprises. This will lead to businesses being worried and not wanting to invest in the long term. Delegate Nguyen Cao Son suggested that the drafting committee study and revise the planning to be consistent with the land allocation time for land tax.

Regarding this issue, the National Assembly Standing Committee would like to state that the land use planning period of 10 years and the land use plan of 5 years have been stipulated by the land law and have been implemented stably. The regulation of the land use planning period and plan is to show the vision and orientation for the future. The nature of land use planning and plan is inheritance and development, with stability, so it does not greatly affect land use projects according to current planning and plans. The time of the current land use planning and plan period is consistent with the Strategy, Socio-economic Development Plan, related plans and plans and the ability to forecast land use demand during the period.

Delegate Nguyen Thi Hong Ha (Hanoi) assessed that one of the new points of the draft that is suitable for urban areas is the regulation that for districts, towns and provincial cities that have approved urban zoning plans, they do not have to make land use plans, but must make annual land use plans. The delegate assessed that this regulation will limit unnecessary overlap and waste. The delegate suggested that specific guidance on the content of the method of integrating commune-level land use planning into district-level land use planning is needed.

Regarding the principles of land use planning and planning, delegate Ton Thi Ngoc Hanh (Dak Nong) said that the third principle of Article 35 regulating the effective and economical use of land is difficult to evaluate. The delegate said that the limitation of this principle is that it is unclear and the content is general. The delegate suggested that if this principle is maintained, it should be revised to reflect the principle of land use planning that must be sustainable, ensuring economic, social and environmental efficiency, in line with current views.

According to delegate Le Thi Cong, land use planning is the basis for land allocation, land lease, land use purpose conversion, and represents a vision for the future. Therefore, land use planning must be based on the overall socio-economic development plan... approved by competent authorities. The delegate agreed that the land use plan is 10 years, land planning is 5 years; agreed that the content of land use planning is still at 3 levels: national, provincial, and district. The delegate said that the abolition of commune-level planning is consistent with the requirements of administrative reform, reducing costs, human resources, and time.

Regarding this issue, delegate Bui Van Phuong (Ninh Binh) had a different opinion, suggesting that the commune-level regulations should be maintained as per the current law. The delegate argued that the principle of planning and land use plans must be consistent with the socio-economic development plan, national defense and security, while the commune is a government level with a complete political system, a grassroots party organization, and the function and task of leading and directing the development and development of the 5-year and annual socio-economic plans. To ensure the correspondence between the socio-economic development plan and the land use plan, the subject of planning and land use plans must be the commune level.

Delegate Khuc Thi Duyen (Thai Binh) also proposed to maintain the 4-level land use planning system as the current law. According to the delegate, the commune-level land use planning is a very important criterion to evaluate the standard criteria in new rural construction.

There are different views on the Land Development Fund.

Regarding the issue of establishing the Land Development Fund stipulated in the Draft Law, many opinions said that the regulation that the financial source to form the land development fund is taken from land use fees, land rent, mobilized from other sources according to the provisions of law and used for compensation, support, and resettlement when the State reclaims land is not appropriate because the land development fund only advances capital for compensation, site clearance and operates according to the principle of preserving capital for the fund.

Delegate Nguyen Thanh Thuy (Binh Dinh) stated that Article 109 of the Draft Law adds a Land Development Fund to carry out the tasks of capital provision, land recovery, site clearance compensation, land fund creation, resettlement housing fund construction, resettlement housing construction and assigns this organization to directly manage the land fund. However, according to the delegate, the financial source of the Land Development Fund is drawn from land use fee and land rent revenue, while the Draft Law stipulates that the land fund development organization is a public service unit and will, according to the roadmap, switch to operating under the enterprise model.

The delegate said that the establishment of the Fund and the assignment of the management to the land fund development organization is not in accordance with the law, causing the dispersion of national financial resources and increasing the apparatus and staff. On the other hand, the delegate cited statistics from 35 provinces and cities that established the Land Development Fund, showing that due to specific local conditions, the management model of this fund still has many limitations.

Delegates proposed not to regulate the establishment of a Land Development Fund. Delegate Nguyen Cao Son (Hoa Binh) also agreed with this view, saying that the establishment of the fund is not in accordance with the State Budget Law, increasing the payroll. Delegates suggested that in case the fund is still established, it must be implemented in accordance with the State Budget Law in a centralized and streamlined manner.

On the afternoon of June 17, National Assembly deputies continued to discuss in the Hall the draft Land Law (amended)./.

According to (TTXVN) - LT