Pity young Čarapić

MP Vasilije Čarapić claims that yesterday's headlines in "Vijesti" are incorrect. "All investors will be able to resell the land as well" and "All investors to be able to buy leased property" in the article about his amendments to the Law on State Property, because nowhere in them does it say that a tenant can buy and later sell leased state land.

He claims that his colleague Goran Kapor "quite correctly captured the essence of the amendment" in the text, but that then the evil editor changed the headlines only because he cannot see with his own eyes the Prime Minister, the Europe Now Movement, all the people in it, their pets, etc.

Let's go in order.

Here's what Mr. Čarapić said in an article with "incorrect titles" about the possibility for a tenant to buy leased state land:

"'Foreign investors coming in want to have security and to protect their investment. If someone were to get the right to lease state land for 30 or 90 years and make a multi-million dollar investment in production, storage, trade..., why wouldn't they also have the right to register these facilities on their own? For example, if 'Lidl' wanted to come and lease land until it develops a business, why would it be controversial to buy it from the state later,' said Čarapić.

This is quite enough for the article to be titled "All investors can buy leased property", (land is also property) because the authentic interpretation of Mr. Čarapić tells anyone reasonable that the goal of his amendments is precisely the possibility for an investor to buy leased state land.

And common sense also says the following: once you acquire ownership rights over something, in this case state land, no one can forbid you to resell it to anyone at any price. This is what the other "incorrect title" says - "All investors will be able to resell the land as well".

Said yesterday Mr. Čarapić that he will withdraw the amendments if someone proves to him that they enable the sale of leased land. Here is Kapor's and my modest contribution to that analysis, which was not included in yesterday's text, because there was no need for it, when Mr. Carapić confirmed her result.

Whose sheep, that and the meadow

It is true that his amendments do not explicitly mention the sale of leased state land. I don't know where mr. Čarapić graduated in law, but I was taught at the Faculty of Law in Podgorica that legal norms must not be interpreted literally according to individual provisions and based on that determine all their legal consequences, but must be interpreted systematically, in relation to all other provisions of the same law, but also in in relation to other legal regulations.

The disputed position from the Law on State Property after the insertion of the amendment Mr. Čarapića would read: "When the object of the lease is land on which the construction of a hotel and tourist complex is planned, that is, land that was leased for up to 90 years by decision of the Assembly, the lessor can give consent to the lessee-investor to alienate the building built on that land, in accordance with the planning documentation and the contract".

Čarapić said in the press yesterday that his addition in this sentence (bold text) will now enable all investors, not only in tourist complexes, to become owners of buildings they build on state land. Contrary to the statement in the text, he also says in the press that this amendment does not give them the right to be registered on the land on which the building was built.

However, the method of changing the ownership of land on which another owner has a building is not defined by this law but by the Law on Property Legal Relations and the Law on Condominium Property.

The Law on Property Legal Relations states that in case of any dispute between the owner of the land and the owner of the building built on it, which can be initiated by the owner of the building himself, the owner of the building becomes the owner of the land if the value of the building is greater than the value of the land, with the payment of market value the value of the land that was before the construction of the facility.

The Law on Condominium Property states that if the building is built on a state-owned urban plot, the owners of parts of the building have common indivisible property on the land on which the building is built.

Čarapić told the press that tenants will get these rights after the lease expires. However, this is not written in his amendments, which means that the tenants can use these rights when it suits them, which they have used to a large extent until now, as soon as they build a building or villas for sale on state land.

The Law on State Property foresees a possibility that, in the case of the lease of state land on which the construction of villas is planned, in addition to the ownership of the building, the tenant-investor can exceptionally also transfer the right of ownership to the leased land below the building. However, this law nowhere else prohibits other possibilities, after the tenant becomes the owner of the building.

(Bad) practice changes the law

Previous practice in the application of this law has shown that it can be used in a very broad way and always in favor of investors. The main culprit for this is the following paragraph of that article in the Law, which says "conditions, time of lease, compensation, method of use and disposal, keeping, protection and maintenance of things leased are regulated by the lease agreement".

For example, in the lease agreements for Luštica, the tenant Oraskom was given all the rights as if it were the owner for a price of seven cents per year per square meter of land. With this transferred right, the tenant decides for himself what and when to build, because the planners have the obligation to adapt to his interests. Also, as a tenant, he has the right to restrict access to that state land to whomever, whenever and however he wants. Who is the essential owner, the tenant or the state?

Although the Law on State Property stipulates that only in exceptional cases, when it is necessary for the functioning of villas, the owner of the villa can also become the owner of the land on which it is built, in the cases of Luštica and Portonovo, this becomes the practice. At the same time, the Government cannot know at what price the tenant of Luštica sold the land to the buyer of the villa, because the state receives only 80 euros per square meter of that land, as determined by the market price when the contract was concluded. At the same time, private land on neighboring plots reaches ten times higher figures.

The same rights and the same article of law were also given to Petros Statis, to build villas and apartments in the protected Miločerski state park, when their buyers become the owners of the land on which they were built.

In Portonovo, the tenant builds villas on state land, fills beaches in the state sea, and then has the right to sell those villas with private beaches on the market.

An investor in Porto Montenegro has the right to land 200 meters of the state sea, build a residential building on it, add land around it for the beach, and then sell apartments with private beaches in the state waters. Everything in accordance with the contract.

In these cases, who is the real owner of the leased space, the state that no longer asks anything or the tenant that has received all the powers?

Good laws are passed precisely so that the space for their free interpretation and subsequent abuse and excessive discretion and arbitrariness of decision-makers would be maximally reduced, not to make such things widely possible. That's what bad laws are for. That would Mr. As a lawyer, Čarapić should have known well.

So instead of correcting the major loopholes in the current law, legal loopholes that are almost always used by privileged investors, Mr. Čarapić proposes a usefully vague amendment that now wants to give the same rights to all investors. Let's not forget that the government, in an emergency electronic session, had previously proposed, without discussion, that the parliament give it greater powers so that it could manage and dispose of assets of up to 300 million euros by itself, without parliamentary control, under a direct contract with the tenant, in contrast to the previous 150 million .

And Mr. Čarapić also suggests that such contracts are no longer submitted to the prosecution. It's hilarious how he justifies it with investors' fear of investigation. What investigations? There is no investigation if everything is according to the law. What credible investor is afraid that the prosecutor will see a completely legal contract that does not foresee corruption or damage to the public interest? Rather it will be that Mr. Čarapić wants to make the government hide possible future corruption contracts from the prosecution.

Puff, puff. Splash, splash. app

Although MP Čarapić has a legitimate right to propose any legal solutions, it is not at all clear to me why the Government did not propose his ingenious and strategically long-thought-out method of equalizing investors at the same electronic session together with the one about 300 million euros. But Mr. Čarapić alone, in moments of leisure, ten days later remembered to propose his own amendment, with which something as important as this is tried to be slipped through quickly and almost covertly? Or did someone whisper it to him? If it goes, it goes. Puff, puff. Splash, splash. Strategically and transparently, it's okay, both the Government and Mr. A sock.

With this, the Government and Mr. Čarapić and/or his "whisperer" continue the practice of the DPS government, which used such useful ambiguities to often incorporate legal loopholes into laws, with the help of which it later fulfilled its (illegitimate) goals.

Mr. Čarapić is apparently continuing the other practice of former DPS champions, by trying to blame everything on "Vijesti" and me, a "pathological hater" of everything PES, just like they used to do. The only thing missing from yesterday's press was the feather of Petar Ivanovic, who for a year and a half did not want to tell us who smoked at the expense of the state. "Vijesti" is where it was then, and where is Petar Ivanović now, I ask Mr. Socks.

I admit, URA has an influence on the editorial policy of "Vijesti", for which I am currently in charge, just as much as DPS, PES, ZBCG and any other political party. That's exactly zero impact, and it's an unsolvable enigma to all of them. How is this possible, when the megaphones of the media controlled by these parties are just that – megaphones. Including PES and its "public services".

Mr. Čarapić also threw a smoke bomb from Đukanović's old slogan about us being "unfulfilled and frustrated", suggesting that we fight the media and criticism of the government and go to the elections, because apparently everything that "Vijesti" does, they do to overthrow the DPS and now PES and took the helm. It didn't work for Đukanović, and it won't work for Čarapić and his team either. "News" is still where it was, and where is Mr. Đukanović, Mr. A sock?

A little tip for Mr. Ćarapića - to make it more convincing, he would have to agree with the boss on the functions we intended. Željko Ivanović cannot be prime minister, as the boss says, and at the same time patriarch, as Mr. A sock. Or they are also preparing some amendment to the Constitution, such as for citizenship and voting rights.

And he really underestimated me when he projects me only for the post of Deputy Prime Minister. Instead of answering this nonsense, I will paraphrase the first editor-in-chief of "Vijesti", Ljubiša Mitrović, when in 1999 high-ranking officers of the Yugoslav Army came to him to threaten arrest because we did not agree to Milosevic's and Vučić's wartime censorship - I have more readers than you have voters. And more than you will ever have.

"Vijesti" and in this "amendment" situation Mr. Čarapić just want to open a public debate on significant decisions with potentially large adverse consequences, such as this proposal to amend the Law on State Property, which the Government and Mr. Čarapić wanted to avoid, so that our readers would know what can happen to the property of their state. And not that bad laws are proposed in electronic sessions with subsequent amendments below the grain, which leave the possibility of realizing private ones under the guise of public interest.

That is why we will continue to persistently, argumentatively and, above all, politely point out the wrongdoings or attempted wrongdoings of both the government and the opposition or anyone else important in society, at least while I am in charge of the editorial office. At least until I become deputy prime minister and fulfill my boyhood dream.