Land Confirmation: Let Farmers Soon Have a "Reassurance Pill"
The confirmation of rights to contracted land concerns the vital interests of hundreds of millions of farmers. It is an important foundation for implementing the long-term stability of land contracting relations, an important prerequisite for carrying out the transfer of land contractual management rights, and an important basis for mediating contract disputes, conducting mortgage guarantees, and implementing land expropriation compensation. Both the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee put forward clear requirements for the registration and certification of rural land contractual management rights, and the No. 1 Central Documents issued for six consecutive years have all highlighted the importance and urgency of the registration and certification work.
At present, the pilot program for registration and certification of rural land contractual management rights is being carried out in an orderly manner. A total of 2065 counties across the country are carrying out pilot programs, involving 15,000 townships and 240,000 villages, with more than 300 million mu of land already confirmed. However, as the scope of the pilot program expands, the problem that laws and policies urgently need improvement has become increasingly prominent: because the specific policy of “long-term stability” has not yet been clarified, some cadres and farmers are doubtful about “how long the confirmation of rights will remain valid.” After the “separation of three rights,” the rights relationship among ownership rights, contracting rights, and management rights has not yet been clarified. The lack of legal basis for the legal person status of rural collective economic organizations and the confirmation of member identity affects the confirmation of collective land ownership rights and the implementation of “confirmation of rights and shares without confirmation of land” for contracted land. In some places, historical legacy issues have caused fears of difficulty, worrying that land confirmation of rights will “wake a sleeping child” and trigger conflicts.
How can relevant laws and regulations be improved to solve problems such as chaotic ownership of contractual management rights and unbalanced farmers' rights and interests, so that farmers can soon have a “reassurance pill”? At the recent biweekly consultation symposium held by the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, members conducted consultations and offered suggestions on “rural land confirmation of rights registration and related legal issues and countermeasures.”
Definition of Rural Collective Economic Organizations and Their Members——
In particular, special groups such as married-out women, newborns, live-in sons-in-law, and later migrants have strong demands for recognition of membership in collective economic organizations
To prepare for this meeting, the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang and the Proposals Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference went separately to Guangdong, Zhejiang, and other places from the end of May to early June to conduct special research. The research found that the identity confirmation of members of rural collective economic organizations is a fundamental issue in the reform of the rural property rights system and is also a common difficulty encountered in the confirmation of rights and registration work.
Many laws in China, such as the “Rural Land Contracting Law” and the “Land Administration Law,” mention “rural collective economic organizations,” but at the national level there has so far been no specialized legislation on rural collective economic organizations, and the legal status, rights, and obligations of rural collective economic organizations are unclear.
“Rural population is now diversified, and disputes over land needs, equity distribution, and share dividends continue. In particular, special groups such as married-out women, newborns, live-in sons-in-law, and later migrants have strong demands for recognition of membership in collective economic organizations.” said Fu Kecheng, deputy director of the Proposals Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, who led the research team. He said that the “Rural Collective Economic Organization Law” should be formulated and issued as soon as possible, to clarify the legal status of rural collective economic organizations, clarify the membership qualifications of collective economic organizations, and straighten out the management system of rural grassroots organizations. Given that the legislative process is long, consideration could be given to first making principled and directional provisions on collective economic organizations and the recognition of member qualifications in relevant documents.
⟦NL> Committee member Chen Zhangliang, who participated in the research, believed that both Guangdong and Zhejiang have issued local regulations on rural collective economic organizations, but legislation should still be accelerated at the national level, “there cannot be a different law for each place.”
Rural Land “Separation of Three Rights”——
Questions such as how contracting rights and management rights are separated, and whether management rights can be mortgaged, guaranteed, and transferred again need to be clarified
Committee members believed that there is also an urgent need to clarify at the legal level the content of the “separation of three rights” of land ownership rights, contracting rights, and management rights, especially the questions of how contracting rights and management rights are separated and whether management rights can be mortgaged, guaranteed, and transferred again.
Committee member Chen Xiwen said that the formulation and practice of clarifying ownership rights, stabilizing contracting rights, and loosening management rights have existed in many places for a long time. Doing so does not change collective ownership of rural land, does not affect farmers' land contracting rights, and improves the efficiency of the use of land management rights, and it has been generally welcomed by farmers. He believed that two issues need to be clarified legally: “First, land contractual management rights are usufructuary rights, while land management rights separated from contracting rights are property rights or creditor's rights? This involves whether the separate land management right can be mortgaged or guaranteed. Second, whether the transferred land management right can be transferred again by the lessee.”
Committee member Zhang Bojun believed that the process of transferring land contractual management rights should be further standardized. The regulation of the use of contracted land transfers should be strengthened, the conditions, requirements, and procedural norms for multiple transfers should be refined, and tendencies toward “non-grain” and “non-agricultural” use and practices such as “reverse leasing and subcontracting” should be prevented during the transfer process.