THE NEED FOR HARMONIZATION OF THE MACEDONIAN PROPERTY LAW

Abstract

Subject of analysis in this paper is the development of contemporary property law in the legal system of the Republic of North Macedonia and the need for its harmonization.

            As the paper will demonstrate, the development of contemporary property law in the Macedonian legal system began with the Law on Ownership and Other Real Rights in 2001. The basic Law on Ownership and Other Real Rights has paved the way for creating a property law system that can meet the challenges associated with the rising of free enterprise economy. The development of property law in the Republic of North Macedonia continued with passing a great number of special laws that were intended to regulate particular segments of property law relations. As a result of special regulation nowadays there are: special laws that regulate legal regime of things of public interest (Law on Agricultural Land, Law on Construction Land, Law on Waters, Law on Forests, Law on Minerals and etc.), special laws that regulate the transfer of ownership on real estate form the State onto private owners (Law on Denationalization, Law on Privatization and Lease of Construction Land Owned by the State), special laws that regulate other real rights (Law on Contract Pledge, Law on Construction Land), special law that regulate State and municipal ownership (Law on Use and Disposition with Things Ownership of the State and Things Ownership of Municipalities, Law on Local Government), special law that regulate construction as a manner of acquiring ownership (Law on Construction Land, Law on Construction, Law on Urban Planning) and many other special laws that concern segments of the property law system. Unfortunately, the in-depth analysis of the many special laws demonstrates a high level of disharmony between the special laws and the basic Law on Ownership and Other Real Rights. The analysis also demonstrates disharmony between special laws that regulate a particular area of property law relations, and disharmony in the provision within the same law resulting from amendments made to it.

            The paper finds the disharmony between laws to be so extensive that compromises the principle of legal security and erodes and destabilizes the entire property law system. In order to overcome the crisis in the property law system, the paper urges for the process of harmonization of Macedonian property law to be set in motion as soon as possible and gives directions on how this process should be conducted.