Expropriation of expropriatees. Investigation by Info-Prim Neo

At the Government’s meeting of November 21, Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev said that the owners of land located near the railway line Cahul-Giurgiulesti that is under construction will be obliged by the Government to sell their plots. He said that those that will not want to sell the land will suffer the consequences of the law, making it clear that the owners that will not negotiate with the Government for reasonable prices will remain without the land anyway. Evidently, the uncommon situation created in southern Moldova worries the Government and the whole society. Info-Prim Neo News Agency employed again the instruments of legal investigations. [The Government’s ‘concern’] [Analyst Igor Gutan] shares the Government’s concern over the refusal of some of the land owners to sell the land, but he says that the Government should take into account that the given persons have the right to refuse to sell their property and to ask the price they consider reasonable. According to the analyst, the Government now has an unclear role because the steps it takes in the given situation cannot be considered expropriation, but only acquisition. The acquisitions are made according to the supply and demand and depending on the willingness of both sides. The Government cannot act as expropriator if the Parliament did not adopt a law through which the construction works are declared as works of national interest and such a law was not published in the Official Gazette. The owners cannot be expropriated against their will as the Government did not observe the stipulations of the law on expropriation for public use. A relevant proof is the Government’s intention to declare the construction of the railway branch Cahul – Giurgiulesti as work of national interest by law. [The society’s concern] [Igor Gutan] shares also the society’s concern because the Government wants to act as expropriator and obtain the adoption of a law by violating the current legislation. The analyst draws attention to the fact that the Government is already behindhand in presenting the bill to the Parliament. Under the same law on expropriation for public use, a compulsory condition preceding the declaration of the plots as land for public use is to conduct a preliminary research to establish [the existence of justifications for the national interest, of social-economic, ecological and other grounds for carrying out the works, and if they form part of the urbanism and territorial development plans], approved according to the law. De facto, the Government will submit a bill regarding the declaration of the plots as land for public use without a preliminary research to the Parliament. Even if such a research existed, it could not be considered as preliminary given that the works have already started and there have been built 11 kilometres of railway. According to the analyst, it is still unclear whether the building of the railway line Cahul – Giurgiulesti is a public work of national interest. Under the law, such a category of works includes only [works that meet the objectives and interests of the whole or most of the society]. The Chisinau press and not only constantly reported on the eventual negative effects of the constructions carried out in the area on the environment. Recently, Alecu Renita, chairman of the Ecological Movement of Moldova, reiterated these fears in an interview for the BBC: "The ecosystem will be strongly impacted. A current problem will be probably solved, but the basic problems related to the ecosystem and to the Prut Marshes will have an effect on the people in four, five, seven years. This is the most serious problem," Alexu Renita says. Ecologists warn that the special biodiversity of the region will be seriously affected and that Europe stopped draining such zones long ago. The residents are also unsure about the usefulness of this railway. The headman of Manta village in Vulcanesti district asks himself: "Will this branch line be profitable and effective? If we invested 800 million lei - the cost of the line - in the southern part of Moldova, we would make this part flourish. The 800 million lei can be used for building a national highway, for developing the territory and the economy," Ion Neagu says. In that case, why does the Government want to declare the construction of the railway line Cahul – Giurgiulesti as work of national interest? One of the reasons can be the unwillingness or incapacity of the Government to negotiate with the land owners under normal market economy terms as it wants to strengthen its positions by adopting laws for certain situations. [Igor Gutan] considers that even if the stipulations of the law on expropriation for public use have been violated, the Parliament will adopt the law asked by the Government and it will become expropriator. Even under such circumstances, the law says that if the sides do not reach an agreement over expropriation, the court must fairly and beforehand decide on the size of the compensations. The compensation consists of the real value of the real estate or of the patrimonial rights of the expropriatees as well as of the damage caused to the owner or to the holder of other real rights. The price of the real estate in the given territory and the patrimonial rights are taken account of when calculating the compensation. It can happen that the Government will return to the starting point. [Instead of post-scriptum:] The farmers in Southern Moldova got the land as a result of the land reform after they had been deprived of the land on the basis of the Marxist-Leninist theory’s notion of “expropriation of expropriators”. Has Moldova discovered and tries to put into practice a new notion of “expropriation of expropriatees”?