Landed law

This week, a company granted land rights back in 1991 organised a forum in order to put pressure on the Macau Government and Legislative Assembly to change the land law, which entered into force in 2013. Present were prominent colleagues of my profession, as well as members of the Legislative Assembly. Some of them voted in favour of the law that they now want to change. Back in October of last year, together with my learned colleague Marta Mourão, we had the opportunity to prepare an article for the specialised legal platform ‘International Law Office’ where we highlighted what had started to happen in December and is now bolder, as the concessions of the plots of land in Nam Van area are to expire very soon. The title of the article was ‘Land Law – problems ahead’ and the conclusion was “The Land Law should be amended to protect the rights of concessionaires who have submitted construction plans because of changes to urban plans and have therefore requested a revision of the concession contract. This would also prevent the government from being sued for inaction.” Since then, we have heard some voices defending the rights of the concessionaires of the land stating that we are in the presence of confiscation. I am not going to comment and discuss this legal term, as an infinite discussion would start. Nonetheless, in my view, this only happens when we talk about rights that are already established in the sphere of an individual or corporation and not provisional rights. In this case, and in my humble view, we are in the presence of a concession that will expire, as the concessionaire has not developed the land. Whether because of the inaction of the concessionaire of the land or of the government is another story. It is clear that in the last 10 years, in most of the cases, it was due to the inaction of the Macau Government, without any doubt. What I cannot understand is why we have well recognised members of the Legislative Assembly criticising a law that they have passed without any kind of reserve. Furthermore, they are raising their voices against a government and a specific Secretary who is only following the rules that he has not created or influenced. At that time, he was in a much better position than he is now. Maybe the problem is that the Macau forces were not used to someone who goes by the book and exercises his office strictly abiding by the laws in force and not looking to any special interests. This is what is new here. The good thing is that our system protects the rights of those who have seen and will see their concessions expire. Unfortunately, not the way they wanted – new concessions or extension of the concessions. But for that, they should not blame the plucky Mr. Rosário but themselves and the colleagues in the Legislative