No “right” to land

Last week the Ukrainian parliament surmounted the president’s veto on the law to extend the moratorium on the sale of agricultural lands until 2008. Out of 438 parliamentarians, 367 voted in favor of the extension (a minimum 300 votes was necessary), including five members of the Our Ukraine fraction. It is significant that this time around 13 more deputies voted for the moratorium than when the law was being adopted.

What spurred the parliamentarians to reach this decision? Unquestionably, they were mainly guided by common sense. The Day’s experts, for whom President Viktor Yushchenko’s veto was the biggest news in Ukraine’s domestic affairs in the New Year and Christmas holiday period, predict that medicine and education “free of charge” are ready to absorb the money that peasants will hypothetically receive for their land.

It should also be noted that the president’s step was very principled and courageous, although hardly an informed one. Keenly aware of the situation in parliament, he could have easily foreseen that the Verkhovna Rada would seek to insist on its own position and surmount the veto. Each mistake like this takes away additional points from the head of the state.

A few days ago Parliamentary Speaker Oleksandr Moroz stated at a meeting of the conciliation council of parliamentary fractions and committees that the president argued his position inadequately in the accompanying documents to the law returned to parliament. The speaker called on the parliamentary fractions to join in surmounting the president’s veto already during parliament’s evening session.

The “golden share” in the voting on this question belongs undisputedly to the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. The BYuT’s support for the parliamentarians in the anticrisis coalition will enable them to acquire the 300 votes necessary to surmount the veto. “The fraction has just made the decision to surmount the president’s veto,” BYuT member Ivan Kyrylenko told journalists, explaining, “Not because we are against the land market — the fraction has always been consistent in supporting a civilized agrarian market.” At the same time he admitted that “market relations are a long way off” in the villages.

The question arises whether the president or, to be more exact, his milieu, should create a precedent for joint actions of the BYuT and the coalition, thereby fostering the defining of the parliamentary value of the “golden share” in parliament? It is not inconceivable that the BYuT will not vote “for nothing,” but will demand compensation in the form of some points in the law on the opposition.

In a word, the president seems to be quietly helping to strengthen the coalition’s positions, while still reconciling himself with some opportunism within the party on which he relies. The members of the Our Ukraine fraction do not intend to take part in the voting to surmount the president’s veto on the law extending the moratorium on the sale of agricultural land until 2008, Interfax-Ukraine reports. Yurii Yekhanurov, member of the Our Ukraine fraction, said the same thing to journalists before voting, i.e., they will not support the veto, but will only vote with their feet, as they say: they will not vote.

Yekhanurov confirmed that the Declaration of National Unity signed by the political powers contains a point concerning the necessity to extend the moratorium on agricultural land sales for one year. However, according to Yekhanurov, in his arguments the president suggests that the moratorium should remain in effect until such time as a corresponding set of laws is adopted, which will regulate agrarian relations in Ukraine.

Yurii HUBENI, Ph.D. (Economics), Professor at Lviv State Agrarian University:

“The president’s veto on the agricultural land sale moratorium allows one to see the whole inadequacy of the spontaneous formation of agrarian policy. Of course, the power counterweights, represented by the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers, will soon improve the situation. Either the veto will be surmounted or other mechanisms will appear, which will prolong the status quo in the agrarian market. However, let us try to ask why, after so many years of the Land Code’s existence, our country is absolutely unprepared to introduce an agricultural land market?

“Imagine a situation in which wonderful roads, and some less so, are built in a certain country, and a large number of citizens own a large number of automobiles, and millions of citizens have the right to drive. However, there are no traffic rules. No known rules (no right-side driving, traffic rules at intersections, or road signs) are valid. The only proviso is that everyone has the right to drive, which is “sacred and inviolable.” And on Jan. 1 these citizens head out on a journey. What will happen?

“The same thing may take place in our land market, the state of which is known to everyone. A land market is a complicated and poorly researched phenomenon not only in terms of its action mechanism but also its possible results. Theoretical disputes are still going on. No one likes to advertise this, but there are countries that are successful in the agricultural sphere, where there is almost no private property for agricultural lands.

“At the same time, the position of renting relations is intensifying in the world. However, we want to learn lessons at the expense of our own people. Europe has already experienced a whole wave of agrarian reforms-revolutions, caused namely by the inadequacy of the land market. It is not simply the question that the government has brought Ukrainian peasants to the edge of poverty and, in many cases, to the edge of survival. Visit any village located more than 50 kilometers from any big city — this is a zone of all-out survival. Borys Hrinchenko once wrote, ‘Sad, depressing views, and you won’t find any others.’

“And so, we will propose to these people that they sell their land? Praised and over-praised ‘investors’ are already rubbing their hands with glee. ‘Say the word and we are ready, like a storm.’ Privatization will seem like flowers compared to such an ‘investment.’ ‘Free’ medical care and education and an army of bribe-takers are already ready to absorb the money that the peasants will hypothetically receive.

“Even with other, ideally idealistic, scenarios the land market demands the kind of normative detailization that our legislative system is not yet capable of producing. Thousands of variants, dozens of scenarios of possible conflicts and contradictions should be taken into consideration. Each law sparks a cluster of contradictions and different interpretations; each decision by the Cabinet of Ministers is followed by disregard of the same laws. On the other hand, we have an absolutely ineffective judicial system and prosecutorial bodies that are eagerly producing decisions on “the lack of corpus delicti” in cases where a crime is obvious. Human rights, especially of an individual that has been deprived of his property, are totally unprotected. Even millionaires have felt this! Economists are aware of the rule of multiplication effect. The combination of these preconditions may create an effect that we have not seen before.

“Will not a question arise concerning ‘distant’ owners, who live, say, in Portugal or in another far-away place? Will excessive concentration of land plots or their fragmentation not take place? Will the servitude system function? (Who knows what this is?) Will a rentier class emerge in our country? There are thousands of questions, and there should be answers for each on the legislative plane.

“Finally, we are absolutely unready for the introduction of an agricultural land market and in the institutional sense. There are no proper institutions, the infrastructure is undeveloped, and property rights are not delimited. Why this happened is a question to which, unfortunately, we will not hear an answer. And advisors and experts on agrarian questions are already producing idyllic pictures of ‘the advent of investments in the countryside.’ It is probably better seen from Kyiv offices or through the tinted windows of Land Cruisers.

“I am a passionate supporter of liberal principles in economics. However, if we want to introduce market relations into the sphere of land relations by the method of improvisation and constant ‘improvements’ to the legislation, I want to say: think it over! Or in the words of Taras Shevchenko’s — come to your senses!

“Everything should be done in a consistent and planned way, on a systemic basis. The Constitution and the Land Code declare that a land market for agricultural purposes will be introduced — nothing can be done about this; we must prepare for it. Any person with an M.A. in State Administration can draw up a preparatory plan for its implementation. Let us take a look at the West, as our neighbors and colleagues in the socialist past have done. An experiment can also be carried out in an oblast with a lot of land. This is not politics: this is administration.”