Land Expropriation Legal Research

Land is the most important wealth.Land expropriation is the power of compulsory acquiring land for the public benefit by the state or the government.In practice,it always infringes the property rights.Many countries stipulate the conditions,compensations and procedures of land expropriation strictly and clearly and establish the full and efficient remedies.This paper aims to study the theoretical foundations of land expropriation and leam from the other countries and regions and reconstruct the legal system of land expropriation.The title of this paper is "Legal System of Land Expropriation". There are seven parts in this paper.Chapter one is an introduction.Firstly,we clarify the notion,character of land expropriation and believe that land expropriation means that the state or the government acquires land compulsorily for the public benefit and in accordance with the law,and pays just and reasonable compensation. It will belong to the public expropriation in the administrative law.Based on the study of natural and social characters of land,land expropriation,as one way of allocation of land,shall meet the public benefit.As for the relations of fight and power,only the full,clear and effective rights can contend with the power,while the rights shall be defined or expropriated when the government exercises the power for the public benefit.Chapter two is the historic changes and existing problems of Chinese land expropriation.The system of land expropriation changes and develops with the needs and standards of economy development,and the character of land rights of rural land owned by the collective.During the planning economy period,backward economy demands to develop military,defense and infrastructure and so on,which makes the power of land expropriation exercised all the time.During the market economy period,the system of investment and employment policies changed,but the rural land is still owned by the collective and is not allowed to sell,and land expropriation is still the unique channel by which the rural land is changed to the state-owned land for development.The rights of land owned by the collective are poor and imperfect and is opposed to the city land.All of the above cause many problems for the system of land expropriation. Land can be expropriated without no condition limits,and the compensation is too low to make the peasants' living standard unchanged. The procedures are incomplete and ways of resolving issues are lack, which make the government abuse the power of land expropriation and harm the rights severely.Chapter three is the conditions of land expropriation.The current scope of land expropriation is so wide that the power can be exercised for any project no matter whether it is for public benefit.This will harm the rights and interests of the expropriated,and weaken the authority of the government,and injure the public benefit eventually.Based on the study on the system of other countries and regions,we believe that land shall be expropriated only for the public benefit.Summary and list will be used to define the public benefit,which will clarify the boundary of power. Proportion principle will used to make clear whether the project is for the public benefit which is rooted in the real life.Chapter four is the core of land expropriation—compensation.There is land expropriation,there will be compensation.Compensations are based on the agricultural products which is too unreasonable and low to meet the original living standard of the peasants.Compensations can not always be distributed to the peasants fully and timely.In other countries compensations are based on market value,and compensations for living rights are always taken into account.In our country,the land shall be expropriate with just compensation which is based on the market value and the losses which cause really.The distribution of compensation will be resolved through self-government before the land property is owned by the individual.Chapter five is the procedure of land expropriation.The main character of current procedure is approval with higher level and land use control.But the procedure of recognition of public benefit is lack,the protection of the rights of knowing facts and participating is poor,the check and control on the later period of land expropriation is poor.The phenomenon of expropriating while no use or expropriating more while use less,and compensation borrowed or corrupted are serious.Clear procedure is one of the best ways for peasants to protect their rights.We should make our land expropriation system perfect,including setting up the procedure of recognition of public benefit,streamlining the procedure of participation, establishing the system of taking back.Chapter six is the mechanism for resolving the disputes.The last resort for the protection of rights is remedy.With the development of economy and society,the nowadays ways are too simple,non-systematic to resolve so many complicated disputes about the procedure of recognition of public benefit.Every dispute about land expropriation can be resolved by land tribunals who have expertise about land in other countries and regions. More attention will be paid to resolving problems through discussion and concordance.Establishing systematic remedies for land expropriation is recommended,including setting up special land tribunals to decide all the disputes about land expropriation,improving administrative supervision who will deal with those disputes mainly about officers' actions outside the judicial remedy.The decision about land expropriation,no matter it is concrete or abstract action,will be checked by court.Chapter seven is some systems related to land expropriation.The reform of land expropriation system is not only itself,it should be a series of systems reform.Firstly,rural land ownership shall be reconstructed, including confirming the body of the collective land ownership,endowing the peasants or farm families with clear,comparatively complete and stable land rights so that being able to discuss the compensation directly, weakening or removing the function of social welfare and encouraging the marketing of land owned by the collective.Secondly,the framework governing rural land shall be reconstructed,including streamlining the framework,integrating the record between rural and city,between land and house.