Protect citizens' rights

Cai Dingjian China Daily Asia News Network Beijing

Property rights is still an unfamiliar term to many who used to live in a rigid planned economic system and have little private wealth. The difficulty in accumulating wealth bars overall prosperity. Meanwhile, the absence of legislation to protect private property can undermine social stability.

This proposal of the Communist Party's latest central committee plenary session, which ended earlier this month, to strengthen the law's protection of all kinds of property rights, including that of private property, is a timely move that will have far-reaching implications for the nation's development.

The Chinese Constitution already provides for the protection of the income and property of citizens. However, there is a sense partiality for public, or state property, which the constitution upholds as "sacred and inviolable."

In separate laws and regulations, measures for protecting state property and punishing violators of such rules are often stricter than those for private property.

A property law system, which governs the acquisition, protection and transfer of wealth, is essential for further economic development and social progress.

Confrontations and disputes have kept arising as some government activities, particularly relocation programs initiated by local authorities in many places, have become a prominent source of infringement on citizens' property.

Paralleling the country's spectacular economic growth in recent years, many cities have taken bold steps to remove old dilapidated houses to make way for road networks and skylines.

Local authorities have mostly provided citizens involved in these programs with new houses and proper compensation.

However, reports about unfair compensation deals and even coercive and forceful dismantling of private houses still occur, largely a result of the absence of specific legal stipulations.

The safety of private property is out of the question, if even citizens' dwellings are subject to unwarranted violations.

A key step to improving the status quo is to add in statutes on clear-cut principles guiding relocation activities.

For example, the law should require local governments to open up information channels about relocation and development to households involved in the affected areas.

The civil law principles of mutual consent and fair compensation should be applied as the guidelines of relocation.

By no means should private property be requisitioned forcibly, unless a court injunction supporting it is obtained.

When economic construction programs run at odds with private interests, the government should address the problem with economic instead of administrative measures.

The government's mandate to dispose of private property forcibly derives from sovereignty of the state. Such power can only be used for national security or public interests, not for economic affairs.

China's urban land administration law stipulates that the government can take over the land-use rights of citizens only when public interests require so. However, the law does not specify what "public interests" exactly mean. Some local authorities have bulldozed relocation schemes by taking advantage of that loophole.

Some local government agencies have ordered citizens to relocate for the development of commercial estates and luxury housing -- even including projects invested by local governments, which are often trumpeted to be for the "public good."

The law should fix a clear scope of these "public interests," to prevent government agencies from abusing power at the expense of private rights. Although public interests may justify the sacrifice of private property, it is not always unconditional.

A sound compensation mechanism and fair procedures will be the testament to the law's care for people's property rights.

The author is a law professor with Peking University.