Webinar : Contemporary Legal & Spatial Issues in Uganda Customary Land Tenure:

Описание: The constitution recognises customary tenure under Article 237(2) (a) and grants the occupants full rights over the land such as that under freehold tenure. This position is reiterated in section 2 (a) of the Land Act, Cap 227 (1998). However, despite this recognition, Article 237(4) (b) of the Constitution provides for the possibility of converting customary land to freehold land by registration. This apparent contradiction raises an important question as to what was the intention of the Legislature on the progressive endearment of the ‘Customary Tenure’ in the Uganda Land System. Fast forward, the Uganda National Land Policy (2013) in section 4.3 seeks the elevation of the customary land rights to a level as all the other tenures. This is due to the label attached to this tenure as ‘inferior in practice to other forms of registered property, regardless of its prevalence. Here, the National Land Policy suggests the establishment of a land registration system to support the registration of rights under customary tenure. The current national registry is embedded in the National Land Information system (NLIS) which stores and provides timely information to the rights holders of freehold, leasehold and Mailo tenures only, without customary tenure.
Because of the unique nature of rights held under customary tenure which often consist of “bundles of rights” potentially held by different individuals or groups over the same land, the framers of the Constitution thought it wise to take into consideration a law that would reserve these rights through recordation and registration. For registration, the Land Act 1998 under section (4) (2) provides for issuance of a Certificate of Customary Ownership (CCO) as a way of securing the rights of customary land owners. For recordation, customary parcels are represented as sketches drawn within spaces provided in the application form.Representation of sketches provides fair adjudication information but does not permit entry of the data in a system like the NLIS.
Strides have been taken by the government, non-governmental organisations,and development agencies to fully implement the policy statements especially section 4.3. These have included employment of pragmatic solutions, reinvented under the concept of ‘fit for purpose land administration’ to mobilise prompt and flexible recordation of land parcels and registration of land under customary tenure.
This webinar explores appropriate contributions that are needed to structure pathways, on the registration of customary tenure and the current outstanding registry system, and how an integration of both can be achieved without dismantling either of the structures. On the other hand, issues in relation to the harmonisation of the kind of knowledge that different actors in the sector have, concerning the various issues from both the legal and spatial perspectives will be fully developed.

The webinar panel discussion included topics;
a) Snapshot of on-going initiatives for registering customary land.
b) Learning from the past: Emerging spatial issues in on customary land registration.
c) Legal Lens: Reconciling the land laws and policy with the past and current customary land registration initiatives.
d) The Future: Ideas for future action
e) Q&A and Closure.