The Syrian parliament agreed to amend articles of Law No. 10, which was issued by Bashar al-Assad and which has sparked widespread international and local controversy.
The announcement of the amendments comes after a statement issued on Oct. 18 by Jan Egeland, humanitarian affairs adviser to the United Nations, in which he said that Russia had announced that the Assad regime would withdraw Law. No 10, quoting a Russian official as saying that any reference to the law going into effect was “wrong.”
According to a report in Al-Watan newspaper, articles of Law No. 10 pertaining to the zoning of administrative units in the provinces would include “raising the time allocated to owners to claim in-kind rights that are not recorded in the real estate registry to one year from one month previously. In case there are no documents, the applicant must note in his claim the locations, borders, allotments, and legal types of the properties or rights that he is claiming.”
Paragraph 2 of Article 6 of the law is also amended to allow “The administrative unit, within one month of the issuance of the decree to establish a real estate development zone, to invite, in an announcement published in a local newspaper and in audio and visual media and on its website and in billboards in the area, the owners of property and in-kind rights which are not established in the property registry or in other agencies legally authorized to keep property registries, to declare their rights.”
The paragraph added: “These, and all those who have a relation to the properties of the development area, either on their own or by proxy, must submit to the administrative unit within one year of the date of the announcement a request that specifies the chosen residence within the administrative unit, accompanied by the papers and documents supporting his claims or copies of them, if any. In the event that there are none, he must in his request note the positions, borders, allotments, and legal type of the property or rights which he is claiming, and all suits raised by or against him.”
The amendment stipulates adding a paragraph in the same article saying that, “The rights noted in the property registries will be the basis for the work of the judicial committees stipulated in this law, and these rights will be taken into account during the committee’s work in evaluating and resolving disputes and distribution, whether such rights have been declared in accordance with Paragraph A of this Article or not.”
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
