The Justifications Behind the Rise of the Reform on Legalization, Urbanization and Integration of the Informal Buildings

Abstract

With the fall of the communist dictatorship, Albania, like all other countries of South Eastern Europe, started its journey towards the materialization of the aspiration for creating a democratic society and promoting market economy. The fulfillment of this goal during the transition, was intended to be put to life through a radical constitutional and legal process, having as main objective, among other things, the reformation of the ownership system and the emergence of private property rights. Therefore, in order to accomplish this objective, based on the principles and values of the new democratic state, a set of legal reforms were undertaken in the field of land privatization, housing and state asset privatization. But since the genesis of democracy, certain people, in order to fulfill the need for housing, established in important public and private urban centers of the country and even in public and even private land parcels, construction structures without the permit of public authorities. The rise and the spread of this phenomenon, not only attacked directly the legal and institutional instruments that were predicted to give rise to and protect private property, but also severely affected the two elements at the basis of democracy, rule of law and private property. Given that a considerable amount of informal settlements were built on privately owned land, a big dilemma arose before the state authorities: Is the state allowed to interfere on the right to private property of its rightful owners in favor of a certain category of individuals, as holders of informal settlements? Consequently, is legalization of informal settlements in privately owned land justified? This paper aims to give them answers to these questions through a thorough analysis of the basic legal documents of international law and based on the jurisprudence of the ECtHR.