Our country is a peninsula surrounded by water on three sides and, from the past, the country has continuously developed public waters. Fishermen set up a base of their livelihood in public waters and, thus, the development of public water inevitably ...
Our country is a peninsula surrounded by water on three sides and, from the past, the country has continuously developed public waters. Fishermen set up a base of their livelihood in public waters and, thus, the development of public water inevitably causes loss and damages on the fishermen. Article 23 Section 3 of our Constitution prescribes that the loss and damage should be compensated pursuant to the statutory laws. The major laws and regulations regarding compensation for fishery loss are: the Act on Acquisition of Land and Compensation for Public Service (hereinafter, the "Land Compensation Act"); and the Act on Management and Reclamation of Public Waters (hereinafter, the "Public Water Act").
However, while the Land Compensation Act sets forth a post compensation for fishery loss which occurs outside of implementation zone of public service, the Public Waters Law stipulates that either obtaining consents of persons having property ownership or compensation in advance is required in order to implement any project. Accordingly, chaos and confusion in actual compensation practice are resulted from such differences in compensation processes between those two statutes with respect to the fishery compensation and, thus, it is needed to improve those statutes.
Firstly, there are some problems in the Public Waters Act itself. Article 12 of such Act requires that, except for the cases where public services are carried out for national defense or prevention of natural disasters by central or local government, consent of all the persons having property rights regarding possession and use of public waters must be obtained prior to execution of public service projects. Article 30 Section 1 Item 1 of the Public Waters Act requires that the consent of persons having property interests should be acquired for obtaining license for land reclamation. Similarly, Article 38 Section 3 of the same Act stipulates that the consent of persons having property right must be obtained. Therefore, these statutory laws result in a problem that the public service projects are plans which promote the public interests much but the implementation of such projects entirely depend on the intent of individuals. With respect to obtaining consents, the consent rate necessary for implementation is not set forth in the Act, which may make the provision construed that it requires such consent from 100% of the people concerned. In such case, it is practically impossible to obtain consents from 100% of the people having property rights because their interests vary and their opinion of the pros and cons of projects are so many and quite different. Also, the area expected to be damaged for compensation is problematic: Article 12 Section 4 and Article 39 prescribe the rights or areas expected to be damaged for compensation as "the ones where the public waters or nearby lands would not be used for the original purpose" and, in practice, it is considered that prior consent and compensation are to be made once any damage is caused even it is a little. Thus, it is understood that this is excessive protection of private interest.
Also, the provisions of compensation themselves are controversial. Firstly, under the Land Compensation Act, post compensation must be made for the cases where any fishery damage occurs outside of public service implementation zone, while advance compensation is required under the Public Waters Act, which leads to a confusion because the statute prescribing general rules of compensation and the statute regulating the public waters subject to such compensation conflict with each other.
Secondly, the basic date of compensation is not clearly defined: given that it is necessary to obtain the consent of people having property interests for obtaining a license of use and possession of public waters, such people requests advance compensation by stretching the meaning of advance compensation which is prescribed in the provisions of public water reclamation. In such case, the contents of possession and use are confirmed by the license but, if the compensation is made in advance before such license is granted, the problem of making compensation based on the project which has not been determined and unconfirmed occurs.
There are some social problems. Firstly, when the consent of people having property rights are obtained, the consents from people whose property interests is not relevant to the project in issue are to be obtained for settling public complaint. Secondly, since the period for obtaining the consents is long and the public service is delayed, which leads that, from the perspective of project operator, project cost increases and, at the state level, economic loss would occur. Moreover, from the position of citizens, they cannot receive welfare benefits at proper time. Thirdly, an agreement between project operator and people granted the compensation is made in the form of obtaining consent and, in such case, the contents which are not set forth as conditions on consent under statutory laws may be contained in such agreement. Fourthly, it would be a waste of budget if the project is not carried out after making advance compensation. Fifthly, there would be a problem of speculation in compensation because some people may abuse the fact that migratory fishery such as fishing vessel fishery can not only be compensated in advance regarding the project at issue before any damage occurs but also be compensated for the area where other public service project is carried out if they move there again.
Lastly, there exist problems on actual practice for compensation. There may be cases where the compensation amount is different from the actual damage. And, when the parties enter into an agreement for obtaining consents of one of those parties, they made it a condition of such content that an institute appointed by the party to be compensated on its own discretion conducts to estimate the scope and extent of damages, which leads to a problem of unfairness in the result that such institute provides.
It is considered that all of these problems are caused by the provisions of statutory laws prescribing that the consents of people having property rights are to be obtained prior to obtaining the license, permit or commencement of construction. Thus, this paper make several suggestions to improve those problems. First of all, in order to grant a license for possession and use for a public service project under Article 12 of the Public Waters Act, such grant must be allowed only by obtaining two third of people having property interests, the majority of such people. In addition, the public service project is to be allowed to get permit for possession and use without the consents of such people even that the condition of such project is to obtain a permit for expropriation or use of land. Also, in order to obtain a reclamation license under Article 30 of the same Act, this paper suggests that the consents of only two third of people having property right are required.
With respect to the requirement of damages to become the person subject to compensation, it is suggested that Article 12 Section 4 and Article 39 must clearly define such requirement that the people subject to compensation must be limited to the ones who fish for a living either in the areas more than two third of the public waters at issue or in the areas where they cannot use nearby lands.
This paper gives some recommendations for the matter of consent for construction commencement and advance compensation: the existing provision of Article 38 Section 3 of the same Act prescribes that, for the cases where people having property interest regarding public waters reclamation exist, an application for approval of reclamation plan must be made only after either obtaining consents for construction commencement or compensating, while this paper recommend to repeal such provision and the compensation process should be regulated only by Article 57 Section 4 of the same Act. With regard to the people having rights to possession and use of public water and those having rights to public waters reclamation, those are to be compensated in advance because their rights are to be considered as those to be included into the implementation zone of public service, while other fishery damages should be applied by the regulations for fishery damages outside of such zone and, thus, must be subject to post compensation.
These suggestions to correct existing problems are the result of research mainly based on the system of the Land Compensation Act. However, there still exist several problems in the provisions of compensation of the Act and, thus, further research to correct such problems must be conducted.