In essence, Mr. Truong Van Dung's complaint is still a petition to reclaim land, not a complaint about an administrative decision or administrative act because the document of Tu Hiep Commune People's Committee is a document responding to a citizen's petition, not an administrative decision, so it is not the subject of Mr. Dung's complaint.
2.2.2. Current status of law application to resolve land complaints in Thanh Tri district
2.2.2.1. Current status of application of regulations on authority to resolve land complaints
Resolving land disputes is a very complex field, under the jurisdiction of many different agencies: administrative agencies and People's Courts.
According to the provisions of Articles 17 and 18 of the 2011 Law on Complaints, the persons with authority to resolve complaints include:
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The Chairman of the People's Committee at the commune level and the head of an agency under the People's Committee at the district level have the authority to resolve complaints about their administrative decisions and administrative acts or those of responsible persons under their direct management.
The Chairman of the District People's Committee has the authority to resolve complaints about administrative decisions and administrative acts of the Chairman of the Commune People's Committee and the head of the agency under the District People's Committee that has been resolved but there are still complaints [20, p. 115].
Thanh Tri District basically applies the provisions of the law on complaints and denunciations on the authority to resolve complaints and denunciations in general and complaints about land in particular. However, there are still some problems in some cases. Specifically, there is a conflict of authority between the District People's Committee and the People's Court in resolving disputes related to the issuance of land use right certificates. Citizens submit petitions
Complain to the District People's Committee about the decision to grant a land use right certificate to another person while the land belongs to the citizen. In this case, they often request the District People's Committee to revoke the land use right certificate that was granted to another person illegally. According to Article 42, Clause 3 of Decree No. 181, it is stipulated that: "In case a land use right certificate has been granted to a person who is using the land stably and whose land use right is recognized by the State, the revocation of the land use right certificate shall only be carried out when there is a judgment or decision of the People's Court that has been enforced..." Accordingly, complaints about land use rights for which the user has been granted a land use right certificate are under the jurisdiction of the court and only the court is the sole competent authority to resolve. Normally, in this case, the District People's Committee will instruct citizens to submit a petition to the District People's Court for resolution. However, the Court disagreed with the District People's Committee on the jurisdiction to resolve the case. The Court held that this was a complaint about the issuance of land use right certificates, so the jurisdiction to resolve the case belonged to the District People's Committee, and requested that citizens submit their petitions to the District People's Committee for resolution. This is one of the rare cases where there is a problem with the jurisdiction to resolve complaints.
2.2.2.2. Current status of application of regulations on procedures for handling land complaints
In recent years, Thanh Tri District has always focused on the work of resolving complaints and denunciations. The District Party Committee has considered this the top priority task of the entire political system. The District People's Committee has issued inspection plans and programs, directives on innovation in public reception work, plans and targets for resolving complaints and denunciations, especially complaints related to land and site clearance, and directed the organization to thoroughly implement programs and plans.
The proposed plan achieved good results. The District Inspectorate is the focal agency assigned by the District People's Committee to resolve complaints and denunciations under its authority according to legal regulations.
Although the number of land complaints is increasing, accounting for a high proportion of the total number of complaints, they are still resolved promptly, in accordance with the procedures prescribed by law.
According to the provisions of the Law on Complaints and Denunciations and the Land Law, the procedure for handling complaints must go through the following steps:
Receive, classify and process applications for resolution;
Examine, verify, collect evidence, prepare documents to resolve complaints; Issue decisions to resolve complaints;
Implement the decision to resolve the complaint.
Thanh Tri District has established a Citizen Reception Department with responsible, qualified and enthusiastic staff. This department is responsible for receiving, classifying and processing petitions sent by citizens or transferred from other agencies. Petitions are processed into two branches: the first branch includes petitions and denunciations under the jurisdiction of the District People's Committee, which will be submitted by this department to the district leaders for handling by specialized departments and offices. Petitions and denunciations about land in particular and complaints and denunciations in general will be assigned to the District Inspectorate, the specialized agency for handling complaints and denunciations. The second branch is that petitions that are not under the authority to resolve will be returned to the citizen (or transferred to the competent authority to resolve). After receiving the petitions, the district People's Committee will issue a notice of receipt of the citizen's complaint. However, the reception department of the district People's Committee only works during office hours on weekdays from Monday to Thursday and Friday morning, Friday afternoon the department does not receive citizens but does synthesis work. Regulations
This provision has somewhat limited the effectiveness of complaint settlement because not all citizens have the time and conditions to come to the public reception office during office hours while the statute of limitations for land complaints according to the Land Law is 30 days and the Law on Complaints and Denunciations is 90 days from the date of receiving the administrative decision or knowing about the administrative act. Thus, although they wish to complain, they cannot directly present the content of their complaint to the competent officials.
The next step in the complaint settlement process is to examine, verify, collect evidence, and prepare a file to resolve the complaint. This task belongs to the specialized department when assigned by the Chairman of the District People's Committee to handle and verify to resolve the complaint. Through research on the settlement of land complaints in Thanh Tri district, it can be seen that most cases related to land complaints are assigned to the District Inspectorate for settlement. During the settlement process, for complicated cases requiring consultation from specialized agencies, the District Inspectorate has the right to advise the District People's Committee to issue a decision to verify the content of the petition with the participation of relevant departments, departments, and specialized units so that the complaint settlement is effective. However, the process of verification and collection of evidence requires active participation from both sides: the complaint settlement agency, the complainant, and the person being complained about. The reality of handling land complaints in Thanh Tri district shows that there are many cases of complaints in which the complainant does not cooperate with the complaint handling agency. A typical case is the complaint about the decision to enforce and recover land in Tan Trieu commune by a citizen of Yen Xa village, Tan Trieu commune. After sending the petition to the People's Committee of Thanh Tri district, the People's Committee of the district issued a decision to accept the complaint and invited the citizen to work to provide documents and evidence related to the content of the complaint. However, at the working session, the citizen did not provide any documents,
evidence related to the content of the complaint, which is that the collection of evidence and documents is the responsibility of the complaint settlement agency. Another difficulty in the complaint settlement process is the dialogue between the complaint settlement agency, the complainant and the person complained about. Because the person complained about is an agency or individual with authority directly under the complaint settlement agency, the complainant often has the mentality that the superior agency always defends and covers up for the subordinate agency, so the dialogue sessions are often very tense, frustrating and many sessions are not effective.
After conducting the investigation, verification, and collection of evidence, the complaint handler comprehensively considers the request in the complaint and, based on the results, issues a decision to resolve the complaint. This is an important step in the complaint handling process. Through the decision to resolve the complaint, the complainant will know whether his or her request or proposal is accepted or rejected. Therefore, the person with the authority to resolve the complaint must be extremely careful and objective, based on the documents and evidence collected when making the decision to resolve the complaint. In some communes in Thanh Tri district, the Chairman of the People's Committee of the commune when issuing a decision to resolve the land complaint made some basic mistakes. A typical example is the handling of the complaint of Mr. Le Long Dinh by the Chairman of the People's Committee of Ngu Hiep commune - Thanh Tri district. In 2005, Mr. Le Long Dinh was left a piece of land by his brother, Mr. Le Nhat Thong, which Mr. Thong had been given by the Food Company when he was an officer of this Company, but there were no documents showing the gift. Mr. Thong died in a house fire, so all the documents showing the ownership of the land were also missing. In 2009, Mr. Dinh built a level 4 house on the land left by his brother. In 2010, the Food Company submitted a request to the People's Committee of Ngu Hiep Commune to enforce Mr. Dinh's construction project because it believed that Mr. Dinh had illegally built a house on the Company's land. Gia
Mr. Dinh's family filed a complaint against the enforcement decision of the People's Committee of Ngu Hiep commune, but Mr. Dinh did not file the complaint, but his wife, Ms. Nguyen Thi Vy, filed the complaint. The Chairman of the People's Committee of Ngu Hiep commune accepted and resolved the complaint and issued a decision to resolve the first complaint against Mr. Le Long Dinh. Thus, the decision to resolve the complaint by the Chairman of the People's Committee of Ngu Hiep commune was incorrect in identifying the subject of the complaint. This is one of the unfortunate mistakes in the process of resolving and issuing a decision to resolve the complaint by the person with the authority to resolve the complaint.
The final procedure for handling complaints is to implement the complaint settlement decision. Any legally effective complaint settlement decision must be guaranteed to be implemented without the complainant's request. The complaint settlement decision clearly specifies the agencies, organizations and individuals responsible for implementing the decision and inspecting the implementation of the decision. The person who issues the complaint settlement decision is responsible for inspecting and urging the implementation of the complaint settlement decision. The law does not stipulate a time limit for implementing the complaint settlement decision. However, research shows that the time limit for implementing the complaint settlement decision is set by the person with the authority to handle the complaint and is stated in the settlement decision. For the complaint settlement decisions of the Chairman of the People's Committee of Thanh Tri district, most of them are implemented within the prescribed time limit. Every year, the District People's Committee always has an Inspection Team to inspect the settlement of complaints and denunciations and the implementation of legally effective inspection decisions and conclusions for communes in the district. However, there are still some cases that are slow to be implemented or have not been implemented. Most of these cases are related to the settlement of land complaints. There are cases that have been decided to be resolved for decades but have not been implemented yet.
2.2.3. Assessment of the current status of land complaint settlement in Thanh Tri district, Hanoi city.
2.2.3.1. Success
In recent years, due to the rapid urbanization, land management and construction order in Thanh Tri District have become increasingly complicated. The number of petitions, especially complaints about land, has increased, mainly focusing on complaints related to compensation, support and resettlement when the State reclaims land to implement projects, complaints related to the issuance of land use right certificates, etc.
Implementing the Party's viewpoints, policies and guidelines on thoroughly resolving complaints related to the land sector, in recent times, Thanh Tri district has made great efforts in resolving complaints and denunciations in general and resolving complaints about land in particular. Thanh Tri district Party Committee has placed this work as one of the focuses of the task of socio-economic development and maintaining security and order in the district. The District Party Committee and the District People's Committee always instruct each professional department directly handling complaints about land to study and grasp the case, thereby advising the leadership on the direction of resolution to ensure accuracy, efficiency, timeliness, reason and compliance with legal regulations. The District People's Committee has assigned the District Inspectorate to coordinate with the Department of Natural Resources and Environment and the District Justice Department to develop a process for receiving citizens and resolving citizens' petitions in order to unify the order and procedures for resolution throughout the district. Citizen reception is not only organized at the citizen reception office of the District People's Committee, but inspectors, justice, natural resources and environment officers are also assigned to directly take charge of and guide communes or places where complicated cases arise to listen to people's opinions and wishes, provide legal guidance, and promptly resolve problems.
Right from the grassroots, grasp the situation and propose appropriate solutions. Therefore, although the number of complaints and denunciations received every year is large, especially complaints related to site clearance and land use right certificates, the district's work of receiving people and handling complaints is still orderly and stable. In the district, there are no complicated, crowded, or over-level complaints because the inspection and handling of complaints is regularly focused on by the Party Committees, district authorities and grassroots authorities from the leadership, direction and handling stages.
In recent years, the District Inspectorate has done a good job of forecasting the situation of citizens' complaints, handling petitions quickly and promptly, and classifying them according to the right authority. Conclusions and decisions on handling petitions have been urged, and grassroots organizations have implemented them quickly and thoroughly. The petitions and denunciations that have been resolved by the City are basically consistent with the settlement results of the District People's Committee, without any adjustment. Typical examples are the complaints of Ms. Ngo Thi Ha (Ta Thanh Oai), and Mr. Nguyen Van Hong (Thanh Liet commune). In some complicated cases, the district's departments and offices have sought the consultation and coordination of many agencies and units such as the complaints of Mr. Bui Van Tuan (Ngu Hiep), Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoa, Nguyen Thi Hao (Dong My), and the cases of Ms. Dinh Thi Hanh, Dinh Thi Phung (Van Phuc)...
The District People's Committee assigned the District Inspectorate to coordinate with the Office of the People's Council - People's Committee to maintain regular quarterly meetings with the People's Committees of communes and leaders of relevant departments, agencies and branches; urge the grassroots to resolutely receive people and resolve petitions. Therefore, it is always aware of the situation of receiving people and resolving complaints and denunciations in the district, thereby having timely and lawful handling directions. There are very few complaints or denunciations sent to higher levels. The conclusions and decisions of the City Inspectorate basically agree with the conclusions and decisions of the People's Committee.