Severo Portela
We have to admit that as far as symbols go, Pandora’s Box – a million problems caused by an unwise interference that is hard to forestall – is combative and unsuitable. But it is the best tool to hand while trying to pen commentary on the so-called revision of the Land Law.
The frontrunner promoting the revision of the 2014 law – rather an appendix interpretation to the bill that sailed smoothly, unopposed and unquestioned three years ago, and yes, it was then a hot August – is none other than Gabriel Tong. This is the stuff of paradoxes, not to say absurd theater, since Gabriel is a Chief Executive Chui Sai On-appointed lawmaker, the head of Law Department at UMAC and a partner at a law firm.
Gabriel is now kind of complaining that the Legislative Assembly rubber-stamped the Land Bill that the government put up to discussion and cast their final vote on, without any debate or anything remotely deserving that name, or even enough public consultation. That means he is complaining about himself.
Indirectly elected lawmaker, Leonel Alves, quoted by Portuguese daily Hoje Macau, who also makes the case for the proposal Gabriel puts forward, spoke about a deafening silence over any assessment of how the proposed amendment to the Land Law would impact the realm of the land concessions.
To simplify a very complex issue, allow us to say that the new bill will end the ability to renew a concession that has been in place for 25 years; when a project fails completion within the legal period, the government can reclaim the idle plot. Legislators and lawyers supporting the amendment of the new Land Law are unhappy with how the MSAR government has been conducting the repossession process and argue that the government is to blame for the non-development of some areas.
Regardless of how the different players are addressing the amendment to the 2014 Land Law – yes, some even spoke of public interest – this time they are hamstrung. Actually, the new bill came silently, like it was already blessed from above, but it was supposed to make a roar and frighten the groups of people operating under the old system. The new bill is a challenge to the practices that have made giants of Macau Real Estate builders and developers; the long-term set-aside system. They have a concession, they keep it undeveloped, and before the concession expires, they apply for renewal, making the system a non-rotational one. On the other hand, the new Land Law Bill, as lawmaker Pereira Coutinho wisely observed, albeit pointing to courts to clarify any issue arising from the repossession drive, is also a challenge at the litigation level… that is to say to the lawyers and the courts. Improving the administrative transparency of land management is the answer!
Pereira Coutinho is not alone, now. Besides the New Hope ticket fellow, Leong Veng Chai, and the New Macau democratic duo, Lam Heong Sang, AL vice-president placed there by the powerful and conservative Workers Federation, announced that FAOM supports the Land Law as it is today and the repossession of idle plots. Lam took the opportunity to warn about that Pandora’s Box, perhaps unaware that lobbyist and former lawmaker Ung Choi Kun and others would open it when trying to raise any hypothetical contradiction between the existing Land Law and the Basic Law.
In this time of puns, we would say thou shall not mistake the spirit of the law with spirited law.
We offer a final illustration of our thesis of the non-court path or prevalence of administrative processes: the CCAC report on the Iec Long Firecracker Factory land imbroglio and the subsequent Executive Order. And that fabulous idea from Hong Kong Urban Exploration (Urbex) of shooting inside the vacant Estoril Casino and an old joke: old lawyers never die, they just lose their appeal!
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