Review on Land Tenure System

Submitted To: Sir Nasir Abbas

Submitted By: Hira Khalid

0409-BH-GEOG-17

Government College University, Lahore

Land Tenure System:
The word tenure derived from a Latin word “TENU” which mean “holding of real state”
or conditions of occupancy.

Land tenure thus means a system which:

 Describes the ownership of land.

 The condition of occupancy of land.
 The manner and responsibility of payment.

Types of Land tenure System in Pakistan:

1. Private land tenure

Private land tenure is assigned to a private party, such as individuals, married couples,
or a group of people.
2. Communal land tenure
Communal land tenure gives to a community the independence to use land within the
community.

3. Open-access land tenure

Open-access land tenure gives no specific right to anyone and no one person can be
excluded.

4. State land tenure

State land tenure gives property rights to establishments in the public sector. Importance of
tenure today Land tenure system has got its specific importance for the development of
agriculture.

The following are some of the importance of land tenure system:

(i) Locating Actual Owner: Land tenure system prevailing in the country helps to
locate the actual owner of the land by the government. Detecting owners of land is
important for recovering land revenue and also to implement agricultural
development programs.
(ii) Development of Agriculture: Land tenure system helps a cultivator to establish
rights of ownership of land by farmers. This would help the farmers to establish a
link between the cultivators is the government. Land tenure system makes the
ownership of land more secure and permanent, which is very much important for
the development of agriculture.
(iii) Importance of Society: Social structure of a country is also influenced by the land
tenure system. If the land distribution pattern in a country is skewed or uneven then
it paves the way for exploitation of farmers..

Problems of Land Tenure System in Pakistan:

The land tenure systems are defective and created a large number of economic and social
problems in Pakistan.

1. It has given birth to absentee landlords who lived in post colonies.

2. The cultivators are oppressed by the land lords due to high rents and insecurity of the
tenure.

3. Landlord is a sleeping partner and takes no interest in land utilization.

4. Landlords give small units of cultivation to tents where modern implements of agriculture
cannot be used.

Features of an Ideal Land Tenure System:

Ideal land tenure system should maintain certain basic features which are important for
preserving the interest of the farmer. The second five year Plan document has identified the
following features for an ideal land tenure system:

i. The tiller or cultivator of the land should possess a definite and permanent right
over his land.
ii. Rent should be collected from the cultivators at reasonable rate.
iii. The limits of cultivation process must be specified clearly.
iv. Farmers should be given the full rights to transfer the ownership of the land.
v. Fixation of rents on land should be flexible.
vi. Inequalities in the distribution of land should be reduced to the minimum.
vii. The land tenure system should establish a direct contact between the government
and the farmer. Thus in order to ensure an ideal land tenure system the above
mentioned features should prevail in the system and also be continued in the long
run.

Rights of Land Tenure System

The right that a person has in an object such as land may be considered as property. In the
case of land tenure, it is sometimes described more precisely as property rights to land. A
distinction is often made between “real property” or “immovable property” on the one
hand, and “personal property” or “movable property” on the other hand,

Multiple rights

Multiple rights can be held by several different persons or groups. This has given rise to the
concept of “a bundle of rights”.

 Different rights to the same parcel of land, such as

1. the right to sell the land,

2. the right to use the land through a lease,

3. the right to travel across the land, may be pictured as “sticks in the bundle”.

Each right may be held by a different party. The bundle of rights, for example, may be
shared between the owner and a tenant to create a leasing.

Example of Rights

 A right to use the land.

 A right to exclude unlawful people from using the land.
 A right to control how land will be used.
 A right to derive income from the land.
 A right to protection from illegal expropriation of the land.
 A right to transmit the rights to the land to one’s successors, (i.e., a right held
by descendants to inherit the land).
 A right to alienate all rights to the entire holding (e.g., through sale), or to a
portion of the holding (e.g., by subdividing it).
 A right to alienate only a portion of the rights, e.g., through a lease.

Customary Land tenure

Customary tenure is a set of rules and norms that govern community allocation, use, access, and
transfer of land and other natural resources. The term “customary tenure” invokes the idea of
“traditional” rights to land and other natural resources: “the tenure usually associated with
indigenous populations and administered in accordance with their customs, as opposed to statutory
tenure usually introduced during the colonial period”

Key Attributes of Customary Tenure

Customary tenure systems share several land governance principles. For purposes of the
present discussion, the most significant common feature is that an individual’s or family’s
right to grasp land and other natural resources in a precise area is based on bonafide connection in
the social or political community , ethnic group, clan, or family , that holds the land in
common trust. Household and individual rights, once attained, are normally secure and
inheritable. Accompanying a household’s right to land for housing and crop production are
rights to use common pastures for grazing and forests for timber and non-timber forest
products. Customary tenure systems normally disallow land sales, especially to non-group
members, because sales would isolate land from community control and ownership. Non-
native members of the community may gain rights to land through marriage to local rights
holders.

Right Standard of Living:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living tolerable for the health and well-being of
himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, required social
services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability,
widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

European Land Tenure System

In modern Europe the development of rural life, and indeed of the life of the community in
general, is dependent upon a number of extremely varied factors. To attempt to distinguish
the one most important factor among them would be an arduous and perhaps fruitless task.
Innumerable forces influence the development of society. Among the most prominent, a
place must certainly be chosen to the land tenure system, i. e. the manner in which man
draws wealth from the soil and is at liberty to dispose of land by law.

Land settlement, the system under which land is worked, the transfer of rural property,
etc., are all factors which exert a thoughtful influence upon the common life of the
countryside, and which combine to form the basis of the economic structure of agriculture.
The system of land tenure in present-day Europe is the outcome of a long process of
progression; its complexities would be practically inexplicable if the historical factor were
not taken into reflection.

At no time has the system remained static for long; it has undergone practically continuous
change under the influence, partly of government intervention, but mainly of economic and
social forces. The evolution, through past centuries, of the relations between owners and
occupants can be traced from them spring the present land tenure systems of the various
European countries. “The plough and the furrow ” states “ symbolize a millenary civilization
which first Italy, then in turn all the other European countries, inherited from Rome as the
fruit of her physical and moral power. Since those times, agriculture has throughout been
 looked upon not only as a productive form of activity but as a mode of life and the pivot of
the social structure”

Islamic Land Tenure System

‘Islamic land tenure’ implies a religious foundation.

 Land tenure in Muslim countries present corresponding web of Islamic customary

and modern principles.
 Ottoman land law ideas often remain important in the modern Muslim context.
 Several (Ottoman-origin) tenure classification – private (mulk), state (miri); and
endowment (waqf).
 Empty or dead land (mewat) as unused or unrefined land which can be converted
into private land by repossession.
 Islamic tenure models are generally gender-responsive.

Is Land Ownership Allowed In Islam?

 Marks of places to land in the Qur’an and to respect for private property
rights.
 Land is sacred trust for human beings based on doctrine of unity (tawhid),
stewardship (khalifa) and trust (amana).
 Some theoretical debate as to whether land itself can be ‘owned’, but Islamic
property rights exist.
 The right to land is linked to land use and unused land cannot be owned.
 Property and land vest in God, but may be enjoyed by men and women
through responsibility and trust.

‘Islamic Land Tenures Concepts’

 Sunni Muslims

Modern land parameter laws are derived, at least in part, from land classifications in classical
Islamic law and Ottoman land law.
  Islamic Land Tenure

Recognition that these systems finally, if indirectly, have religious foundations

 Contemporary land tenure regimes

Evolved from, or are unfair by a complex, dynamic and overlapping web of these Islamic
principles, state and international legal frameworks, customary standards and informal legal
rules.