How Can Land Management Challenges Be Solved? A Full Analysis of Practical Countermeasures
The Party and state attach great importance to farmland protection and have repeatedly stressed that "the red line for farmland must be strictly guarded." But in reality, for various reasons, land management work has failed to effectively curb illegal and irregular land use. Under the new situation of comprehensively advancing the rule of law, we should, in accordance with existing laws and regulations, improve the land management mechanism, strictly carry out land inspection work, effectively constrain local governments, land users and land management staff, and solve the land management challenges as soon as possible.
Converting other types of land into construction land on the premise of complying with the overall land use plan is called land expropriation and conversion approval, and this approval power usually rests with the provincial government. According to legal provisions, the premise for illegal and irregular land use to obtain lawful approval is that the conduct must be handled in accordance with laws and regulations; otherwise it is filed and investigated as an illegal land approval act. If illegal and irregular conduct obtains lawful approval procedures without being investigated, the approval staff bear important responsibility; if the illegal and irregular conduct is investigated, the illegal and irregular subject will face property penalties and even criminal punishment. This contradiction between approval staff and illegal and irregular land use subjects is the first-order contradiction in land management.
Illegal and irregular land use subjects include local governments, individuals, enterprises and institutions, etc., and their purpose is to occupy or use land in advance to obtain returns. None of them want the illegal and irregular land use conduct to continue, because property rights cannot be established and are not protected by law. Therefore, they all hope to obtain lawful land approval procedures. Wanting both the returns from illegal and irregular land use and lawful approval procedures is the second-order contradiction in land management.
Under strict approval, converting illegal and irregular land use into lawful use is subject to punishment. On the contrary, illegal and irregular conduct that does not seek to become lawful, such as some illegal rural residential plots and private factory buildings, can obtain benefits. Although both are illegal and irregular conduct, converting to lawful use is subject to punishment while not converting can obtain benefits; this is the third-order contradiction in land management.
According to relevant laws and regulations, local land law enforcement departments must transfer confiscation penalties to the local finance department for handling during enforcement. In reality, some local finance departments do not truly carry out confiscation, causing losses of state-owned assets, and this has nothing to do with local land law enforcement departments. The contradiction between local finance departments and illegal and irregular land use subjects is the fourth-order contradiction in land management.
Judging from the actual situation of land inspection, the main reason why a large amount of illegal and irregular land use obtains approval without being punished is the lack of effective supervision, that is, the first-order contradiction is the principal contradiction. To solve the problem of illegal and irregular land use, we must grasp the principal contradiction of illegal land approval.
To grasp the principal contradiction and solve the land management challenges, the national land inspection agency needs to intensify supervision, strengthen verification of land approval, seriously inspect illegal land approval acts, urge provincial land approval staff and local law enforcement personnel to strictly perform their duties, and handle illegal and irregular land use conduct thoroughly, thereby resolving the second-order contradiction. Under strict approval, illegal and irregular land use subjects will be unable to obtain any benefits, the enforcement environment will improve, enforcement fairness will be demonstrated, no one will dare to use land illegally or irregularly again, and thus the third-order contradiction will be resolved. If the national land inspection agency jointly conducts land financial audits with local procuratorates, it will certainly prompt local finance departments to implement confiscation penalties, and the fourth-order contradiction will also be resolved.
By using certain technical means, the national land inspection agency can determine whether land submitted for approval involves illegal or irregular conduct, and achieve all-round supervision of provincial land approval staff. The national land inspection agency can require local land law enforcement departments to report data such as the location, area and type of illegal and irregular land use by time period. In this way, local land law enforcement departments will focus their energy on discovering problems and will no longer be constrained by local governments, so illegal and irregular land use problems can be discovered and handled in a timely manner. The national land inspection agency can also, by inspecting how all localities investigate and handle illegal and irregular land use, increase the cost and price of illegal and irregular land use, thereby improving the order of land use and management, creating a fair environment for land law enforcement, and reversing the spread of illegal and irregular land use. In this way, land expropriation and conversion approval will become increasingly standardized, local land law enforcement staff will have more energy to discover and investigate illegal and irregular land use problems, and the entire land law enforcement and inspection work will enter a virtuous cycle.