Forced demolitions
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Local governments' direct and deep involvement in forced evacuations and demolitions and in disputes over land seizures is a major cause of violent confrontations at the grassroot level.
The overturning of a vehicle of the mayor of Chizhou, Anhui province, East China, during a recent standoff between villagers and demolition workers is only the latest sign of the friction that is developing as local authorities accelerate the pace of "urbanization."
Although the mayor had to be escorted from the scene by scores of fully armed riot police, the most unsettling part of such stories is the damage done to people's lives in the name of the State and government.
The existing rules are unable to handle these escalating land disputes. On the contrary, in most cases, those murky clauses are the cause of the problems. So the last ray of hope is the proposed Regulations on Requisition of and Compensation for Buildings on State-owned Land. The draft version was published for public opinions on January 29.
Reports have it that the latest draft may exclude local governments from the process of forced demolitions and consign the matter to the judiciary. The idea is to introduce a judicial procedure for such undertakings.
Since there is not even a deadline for the completion of such a widely anticipated and disputed document, and the stakes are too high for the drafters of the document not to be prudent, we can only hope the finalized draft will include such an initiative.
Experts may be overly optimistic in assuming that the courts are aloof from local interests and therefore can guarantee justice. But leaving the matter to the courts' deliberations is a meaningful step in the right direction, because it may bring us closer to the ideal of rule of law.
However, judging from the present pattern of division of work among branches of the government, there is no way to really divest local governments from forced demolitions. The local courts' lack of independence from same-level governments will inevitably influence their judgments on whether forced demolitions are needed.
At the very least, it will ensure a decent procedural mechanism and the threshold for abuse may be considerably higher. For that alone the idea is worth endorsing. But since a new set of rules is meant to solve real-world problems, instead of showcasing breakthroughs in thinking, we can legitimately expect more.
Besides containing the reported clause, the final draft should include technical details to make sure court decisions do not become handy tools to impose injustice. And the potential victims must be given sufficient means to defend themselves against abuses. The priority should always be to protect those people subject to forced demolitions.
