COMMENT: Brief Comment on the Draft Land Administration, Use, Registration and Plan Proclamation, 2007 (EC)
| Author | Daniel Behailu |
| Position | (LL.B, LL.M, PhD), Asst. Professor of Law at Hawassa University; E-mail: d.behailu@yahoo.com |
| Pages | 408-412 |
408
Brief Comment on the Draft Land
Administration, Use, Registration and
Plan Proclamation, 2007 (EC)
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/mlr.v9i2.6
Daniel Behailu
The draft ‘Land Administration, Use, Registration and Plan Proclamation (2007
EC)’ has been in circulation for a while now. One of the prime objectives of the
draft law is to address various counterproductive restrictions in the current
federal land proclamation. According to its preamble, the draft aspires to
expand the rights of land users. The notion of ‘expanding rights’ presupposes
the existence of restrictions and prohibitions in the existing law attributable to
narrow conception of rights.
The objective of lifting restrictions is a rights approach. This evokes the
question whether the draft law alleviates (or lifts) all restrictions. The draft
proclamation has many strong points. It lifts various restrictions of the existing
law, especially on the transfer of land rights. However, the restrictions and
prohibitions of the federal land proclamation are still embodied in various
regional laws thereby necessitating further improvements which are highlighted
below.
The title of the proclamation ‘Land Administration, Use, Registration and
Plan Proclamation, 2007 (EC)’ is cumbersome and very long. The current
proclamation’s title, i.e., ‘Land Administration and Use Proclamation’ is rather
more befitting, and can be used for the draft as well. The supplementary words,
i.e., ‘registration’ and ‘plan’, are tasks that can be subsumed under the heading
‘rural land administration and use’.
With regard to the content of the draft, the issues that need attention include
the expansion of land use rights, land registration, pastoral land, land use plan,
conflict resolution, sharecropping, and scope of application.
1. Expansion of Land Use Rights
The central idea of the draft proclamation can be observed from the preamble. It
states that the new law is meant to expand the land use rights of peasants and
Daniel Behailu (LL.B, LL.M, PhD), Asst. Professor of Law at Hawassa University;
E-mail:
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