New rules on eviction in China – will BKL residents be so lucky?

Jan. 27, 2011. This article is provided by Caixin Media, and the Chinese version of it was first published in Century Weekly magazine. http://www.caing.com

Eviction rules are but a first step

Edited by Hu Shuli
Updated on Jan 27, 2011

Finally, after four years of preparation and hearing over 100,000 public opinions, the government has set rules to put an end to the forced demolition of homes by government officials. The new regulation on the requisition of buildings on state-owned land, which took effect last Friday, brings hope to the millions of residents in mainland cities who are at the mercy of rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. The rules signal the awakening of civil rights awareness in mainland China, and reflect progress towards a society with sound governance and rule of law. They offer an institutional solution to the seemingly intractable problem of forced demolitions. In particular, two provisions are commendable.

First, the regulation outlaws the forced demolition of homes by government, and allows people who object to the requisition to seek legal redress through the People’s Court. This is an unprecedented move that puts homeowners on an equal legal footing with local governments, and gives residents the opportunity to protect their rights in a relocation.

Second, the regulation states for the first time that the compensation for a requisitioned property must not be less than the market value of similar properties. It also allows the affected homeowner to hire the valuation agency of his choice. This effectively bans the practice of sending homeowners packing with only nominal compensation.

However, the regulation’s implementation will be challenging. For it to be effective, for demolitions to be carried out legally and the compensation to be fair, and for lawmakers to strike a balance between public interests and homeowners’ rights, the judiciary must work independently and in compliance with the law. At this stage of China’s reforms, this is its most difficult task and biggest challenge.

Under the regulation, the government may not evict a household by force, but it may apply to the court to take such action. Inevitably, questions will arise: in this scenario, can negotiations between the government and residents be truly fair, and will the judiciary be truly independent of the government? In the past, we’ve seen local government officials who, with court orders in hand, tried to turn people out of their home without fair compensation. When residents put up a fight, this sparked confrontations that in some cases ended in death.

In fact, there have been too many examples of government intervention in the exercise of judicial powers. We’ve seen cases in which local governments did not acquire a property according to law, even though they were authorised to do so; and we’ve seen many relocation agreements reached through negotiations that were neither rational nor just.

The worry is that, not only will the latest regulation not rein in government excess, it may provide a cover for more such behaviour. After all, government officials may now justify forced evictions by saying they were only acting on the court’s order, according to regulation. If this happened, it would sorely disappoint the people, who had hoped to bring forced evictions under the purview of the law.

Therefore, even as we welcome the new rules, it is important that we also establish mechanisms to ensure the effective legal protection of civil rights, and to provide legal channels for residents to seek redress if needed.

The new regulation has another major flaw – it is silent on the requisition of housing on collective land in rural areas. The State Council’s Legislative Affairs Office explained that it was because the regulation comes under the law governing urban properties, while the requisition of collective land in rural areas is covered by the law on land administration. This means that two different laws govern the two types of requisition, though they share the same principles.

This is a poor reason for the regulatory gap. The two laws are separate because, for technical purposes, rural and urban issues are administered separately, though this distinction should have been changed long ago.
Due to rapid urbanisation, demolition and relocation is a common scene in rural and urban areas. Every year, some 80 per cent of new land for development comes from the requisition of rural land, which sometimes involved the demolition of whole villages. With accelerating urbanisation, the size of the villages facing demolition and the number of people affected have far exceeded those in urban areas. Clearly, the problems associated with the requisition of rural land are more widespread and critical.

But, no laws regulate the demolition of rural housing. There aren’t even standardised rules at the provincial government level. The eviction is often carried out based on county government documents and, in some cases, the meeting minutes of a county government. The fate of a village and its thousands of residents is in most cases decided by several county officials. This regulatory lapse is worrying; it is the direct cause of many violent clashes between villagers and local government officials.

These problems must no longer be ignored. Perhaps recognising the need for change, a State Council executive meeting last week urged that the land administration law be amended, to regulate the requisition of rural land and its compensation, and for a relevant bill to be presented soon to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee for consideration. This is a positive development.

To fully tackle the problem of forced evictions, the government must integrate its administration of rural and urban land, refrain from interfering in the land market, and strictly carry out its plans for land use and urban planning.

As China urbanises, the forced evictions by local governments must be brought under the rule of law – this is inevitable as society develops, and it is what the people expect. The new rules for land requisition are a milestone, but whether they are effective remains to be seen.

“Boeung Kak residents alarmed by newspaper calling their houses “ghost houses”, demand correction”

Jan. 26, 2011. Recently blocked KI-Media featured this piece today, from The Free Press Magazine:

“At 8:20AM on Wednesday, about 70 residents of the Boeung Kak community, who are now involved in a land dispute with the Shukaku Inc. Co. belonging to CPP tycoon Lao Meng Khin, have gathered to protest in front of the pro-government newspaper Koh Santepheap. The residents demanded a correction by the newspaper which labeled their houses as “ghost houses without people living inside.”

A representative of the residents told The Free Press Magazine over the phone that: “Right now, we are standing in front of the office of Koh Santepheap newspaper, next to the Russian Hospital. We do not agree with the newspaper’s publication on Tuesday, reporting that all the houses in Boeung Kak area have been evacuated and the houses there are ‘ghost houses’ and ‘air houses.’ We disagree and we want a correction, these are not ‘ghost houses’, they are houses that people still live inside. They made mistakes upon mistakes, we demanded that they made a correction, but they kept on making additional mistakes instead.”

Land grabs are Cambodian cancer

Jan. 25, 2011. In December, The Bangkok Post ran a story on Boeung Kak.

“Standing knee-deep in dirty water, 60-year-old Men Chhoeuy uses a crowbar to dismantle his small wooden house on the edge of a lake in the Cambodian capital.

A village is being flooded by water and sand near Boeng Kak lake in Phnom Penh. As a construction company fills a lake with sand in the centre of the Cambodian capital, thousands of residents worry they will be the next victims in an epidemic of forced evictions across the country.

He is the latest resident to give up the fight against a private company accused of spewing sand into lakeside homes as it fills in the 130-hectare (320-acre) site to make way for high-rise buildings and shopping centres.

“Many neighbours have already left,” said Men Chhoeuy as he continued his demolition work on the northern edge of Boeung Kak lake, one of the last large open spaces left in Phnom Penh and once home to about 4,000 families.

The sand-pumping has increased significantly in recent weeks and a number of homes were fully immersed in a matter of days, leaving only the tips of roofs sticking out as startled families scrambled to save what belongings they could.

“The message that is being sent to the remaining residents at the lake is that they should accept the compensation being offered to them or else their houses too will be buried in mud,” said David Pred, executive director of Bridges Across Borders Cambodia, a non-governmental organisation.”

You can read the full story here.

China ending forced house demolitions

BEIJING, Jan. 22 (UPI) — China is ending forced demolitions of homes without due process and compensation, the government announced.

The Cabinet issued the rules Friday and they took effect immediately, Xinhua reported.

They aim to balance public interests and individual property rights, the government said.

Violence, coercion or illegally cutting off utilities to force homeowners out will be barred. And land developers are not to be involved in demolition and relocation proceedings. Local authorities or designated non-profit entities will be in charge to avoid conflicts of interest, which the government acknowledged has been an issue.

If compensation terms cannot be settled with homeowners, only a court can approve a demolition. Local governments had been able to order demolitions at will.

In one of several recent violent confrontations, demolition workers broke into a house in Shanxi province in October. The owner, who refused to leave, was pulled from his house and beaten to death.

“By minimizing business interests in the expropriation procedure, the new regulation could effectively reduce the incidents of forced or violent demolitions which, in many cases, were driven by commercial concerns,” said Shen Kui, a law professor at Beijing University.

Read the full story here.

Remembering Dey Krahom

Jan. 24, 2011. Dozens of Boeung Kak residents joined former Dey Krahom residents to mark the two-year anniversary of the violent eviction of the Dey Krahom community in 2009.

The Chinese Reply

Jan. 24, 2010. The Chinese Embassy has given a interview regarding the situation at Boeung Kak to Chongqing Evening News. You can read it in Chinese here.

The below is an unofficial translation of the article:

A Response from the Chinese Embassy: The Chinese Company will only be Involved in Development * Local People have Incited Problems under Western Influence

Jin Yuan of the Commercial Section of the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia accepted an interview from reporters on the 18th to discuss this matter. During the interview, Jin noted that the Chinese company will only be involved in development and construction of the project, and will not play a role in clearing the construction site or in resettlement issues. At present the project has yet to enter the development phase, but there have been many reports that have mistakenly associated the Chinese company with resettlement issues.

Jin Yuan noted that the government of Phnom Penh is very supportive of the Lake development project and that it has established an organization similar to the “Resettlement Working Groups” that are set up in China to facilitate such matters. Residents of the Lake area have already been requested to negotiate directly with the government on issues related to resettlement, and no companies are involved in this process at this point. Resettlement itself is rather complicated, and some upset residents are too aggressive in seeking resettlement. They think that the development company should be responsible to them for resettlement issues. At the same time, it is not out of the question that Western influence is behind the recent uproar. He told reporters that two years ago Chinese development companies ran into similar issues in Laos, where there Western media had created rumours that China planned to moved 50,000 Chinese people to Laos in conjunction with a real estate development.

The Phnom Penh Post covered the story today. You can read it here.

No End to Protests

Jan. 17, 2011. Since their week-long demonstration at Freedom Park, Boeung Kak residents have continued making their voices heard. Today, residents gathered at the Chinese Embassy to deliver a petition to the ambassador over Chinese involvement in the Shukaku development. The Chinese however refused to receive the petition, calling instead riot police to disperse the peaceful crowd.

Residents are not the only ones met by police and harsh measures. Over the weekend, Phnom Penh Post photographer Sovan Philong had his camera confiscated and all photos deleted, in a flagrant violation of the freedom of press. In response, the Post has called for an independent inquiry into the incident, as well as vowed to continue reporting on Boeung Kak. You can read the Post’s first page editorial here.

The Post has remained true to its word. You can read their coverage of the demolition of 30 homes in Village 24, which left residents homeless, here.

Last week, the newspaper also reported the municipality has downgraded plans to build a flyover in the area to build a standard road. You can read the article here.

Chinese involvement in BKL confirmed

Jan. 7, 2011. In a letter sent by Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema in November, Prime Minister Hun Sen “agrees to the offer” of re-registering the Shukaku Inc.’s 99-year lease of Boeung Kak under the new name of Shukaku Erdos Hung Jun Property Development Co, Ltd, in recognition of Chinese investment in the illegal venture.

Though the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh maintains no Chinese company is “involved at this stage”, the letter from the Governor to the Prime Minister leaves little doubt about Chinese involvement. You can read the letter here.

In the meantime, hundreds of Boeung Kak residents are continuing their daytime vigil at Freedom Park for the fifth day running. The demonstrators are demanding 15ha of the total lease area for on-site development, or alternatively a fair price for their land.

The Phnom Penh Post covered the story. You can read it here.

New Year, New Protests

Jan. 3, 2011. The Boeung Kak area is looking increasingly bare, yet some community activists are continuing the fight for their land and housing rights. On Monday morning, some 150 residents gathered at Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park to again ask Prime Minister Hun Sen to intervene, despite being fully aware the Prime Minister himself attended a September meeting which heralded Chinese investment into the Shukaku venture.

Only a few houses remain in Village 1. They have been refused compensation by Shukaku

What used to be the main entry point to Village 1

Village 24: Few structures remain on the lake

Village 24 used to be a vibrant community