Strengthening Property Rights Timor-Leste

LEI is supporting the US company ARD in implementing a USAID-funded project aimed at addressing property rights and land tenure issues in Timor Leste. Land tenure has experienced a rather tenuous history in Timor-Leste. Formerly known as East Timor, the country was occupied as a colony of Portugal for some 450 years, experienced three years of Japanese occupation during WW2, some twenty five years of Indonesian occupation following its first attempts at independence late 1975, through to formal acceptance of independence in May 2002. During each of these occupations, some property rights were granted. However, since independence, no property rights have been issued and no former rights are recognised, as no land law under the new Government yet exist.

The five-year programme Strengthening Property Rights Timor-Leste (SPRTL) or “Ita Nia Rai” (Our Land) aims to map all land claims in Timor-Leste. Parallel to the SPRTL project, the Government of Timor-Leste is reviewing its land registration requirements and developing legislation to support its land reform requirements. The project is being run with the cooperation of the Ministry of Justice and the National Directorate for Land, Property, Survey and Cadastre. The hope is that by clarifying land boundaries and ownership’s and providing supporting legislation, there will be fewer disputes and legal land sales can take place, leading to a more stable economic and social climate, as well as increased national and regional development.

A land claims process has been developed to identify and record land property claims. This will be undertaken by field inspection and collection of claims data in Field Offices. The emphasis in regard to boundary identification and recording of land claims is on ensuring that claimants and neighbours agree on the location of their common boundaries and that those boundaries are permanently and visibly marked by appropriate physical objects or features. Disagreements over boundary positions will be addressed, and if not able to be resolved at the time of field inspection, will be recorded for subsequent mediation and dispute resolution. The field teams will enter the collected claims data into a centralised Land Claims Information System (LCIS). The property or parcel data collected will be entered into a Spatial Claims Data Base (SCDB). The SCDB is a component within the LCIS with links to the textual database for GIS analysis.

The project identifies a great deal of public involvement and participation aimed at getting maximum exposure and to facilitate transparency of the claims recording process. The results of the land claims investigations will be announced nationally and lists and maps of claims displayed at specified locations. This will allow for wide examination of the results while national announcement will provide information for other interested parties. During public display, the community will be requested to check the displayed results and indicate their confirmation if the data is correct or object if they did not agree. There will be an opportunity of submitting further claims during this period. During the entire process, the recorded data will be maintained to update records for any changes to the claimed ownership, such as through transfer, inheritance or land division.

Provided by Allan Wilson