Registration of Ownership Rights and Guarantees of These Rights – Experience from Slovakia

I. Introduction

Part of the strategy preceding the admission of the Central and East European countries to the European Union, which was adopted by the European Council in December 1994 in Essen, Germany, was also a so-called White Book on the associated Central and East European countries’ preliminaries to the integration into the Union’s internal market. The White Book submitted by the Commission of the European Communities represented complex and detailed treatment of the Community’s legislation relationship to the internal market issues. In the White Book the main aim of the Community’s legislation was introduced, together with the clarification of the organizational and administrative context, as well as with the recommendation of the order in which the associated countries were supposed to tackle the problem of the approximation of their own legislation to the legislation of the Community.

The main aim of the approximation of the Central and East European countries was the preparation to operate in the conditions of the European Union internal market. The White Book initiated the drawing-up of the programme allowing the associated countries to fulfil the requirements of the internal market, the carrying-out of which is intended by the European Union. At the same time it was supposed that each of the associated countries would draw up a priority programme of their own and the schedule of single steps implementation. Generally it is accepted that this process entailed more than only the approximation of legislation, although the key part of the approximation is indisputable. Gradual approximation to the internal market conceptions in the Union has strengthened the competitiveness of the Central and East European countries’ economies, the benefit from their economy transformation has increased and at the same time the macroeconomic stability was reached and consolidated.

Successful functioning of the single market requires the fulfilment of a large scale of basic conditions in economy, which cross the limit of pure removal of formal obstacles to free movement. In this connection also some other factors should be included, such as the existence of open and fair economic competition between the economic entities within the whole market, the guarantee of minimal social standards and some others, which are of less importance (the guarantee of the reasonable degree of the environmental protection and other things) for the functioning of the land administration sector. The single market regulation is understood to be the regulation of the free movement of goods, persons, services or capital, the influencing of the competitive situation of firms, preventing the new trade obstacles from arising, the state aid provided to the economic competition, the control of fusions and agreements limiting the competition, the control of the abuse of dominant position, counterbalancing of the positions of state monopolies and public organizations, safety and health protection at work, equal opportunities for women and men, personal data protection, protection of intellectual, industrial and trade ownership and other things.

The European Union internal market itself is defined (Article 7a of the Treaty establishing the European Communities, hereinafter referred to as „EC“) as a space without internal boundaries, in which free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is guaranteed. This market is characterized by its social dimension and by the support of active economic competition and also by systematic controls necessary for adhering to respective rules. In order to ensure these rules, the Treaty on EC provides extensive conditions.

For the associated countries the main problem concerning the internal market does not lie in the approximation of corresponding legislative texts, but in the adoption of society and its administrative apparatus to the conditions under which this market could operate. It is a complex process, which involves the establishment or adaptation of necessary institutions and structures including crucial changes as regards the duties of state administration, justice as well as of newly-established private sector.

During the transformation process also the Slovak Republic has made serious efforts at adaptation and implementation of the set legislative measures, especially in the area of the internal market. However, it faced an extensive and complex task whose fulfilment required, requires and still will require special coordinated efforts and indomitable will.

II. Present situation

International treaties, by which the accession countries, including the Slovak Republic, are bound, are not directly related to the area of land administration, or real estate administration in a broader sense. By international treaties are only protected general principles that indirectly affect land administration. For instance, the Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights protects the right to own property, the same right for all kinds of ownership, especially equalization of the ownership rights of citizens, legal entities and the state and providing the equal protection of this right, the guarantee of the same legal content and protection of the ownership right of all owners, the guarantee of the inheritance. With this is directly connected also the same right of the acquisition of real estate ownership for all persons and of the maintenance of this ownership right, or more precisely the balanced fair restriction of acquiring the ownership right and the restriction of its maintenance – expropriation, or the restriction of the exercise of this ownership right. Similarly, the Article 1 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms as amended by Protocol Nr. 11, Rome, Italy, 4.11.1950, hereinafter referred to as “Convention”, sets out that each natural person or legal person have the right to the undisturbed use of property in their ownership and that nobody shall be deprived of this ownership except for the cases in public interest, and under conditions regulated by law and by the general rules of international law. In similar general method is in international treaties declared the necessity of the protection of some other rights, e.g. the right to the information access, to the economic development which implies the right to do business and to the share in this development, to the right to establish associations, to the privacy protection, to the right to a free choice of profession etc. From this relation between the rights it follows on the one hand, that the guarantee of ownership, which is the right to freedom, is complete only with the other said freedoms, while on the other hand other rights (freedoms) require to be completed with the guarantee of ownership, especially the ownership of real estate. The state of legislation in the Slovak Republic in the mid-1990s more or less reflected these general principles and the requirement of their balanced implementation, namely with the increased emphasis laid on the ownership right protection and on the protection of bona fide action.

Land administration procedures are not especially regulated by the Community Law of the European Union. In this area, the European Union requires from the member countries only the functionality of legal regulations, respecting several of the above-mentioned principles.

III. Birth of the current division of competences in the section of land administration in Slovakia

A special characteristic of the development of the real estate ownership in Slovakia, particularly outside the built-up area of a municipality after the 2nd World War was the separation of ownership of the land from its use. Entry into land register, in which proprietary relations were registered, ceased to be entered after the year 1951. After this year, the entries of right were kept in it only sporadically. The real estate inventory, which was established in the year 1964, registered especially land use relations in the non-built-up area and proprietary relations only in the built-up area in most cases. The analysis of the examined problems for the period 1949 to 1991 has markedly shown the specifics as follows:

• as a consequence of the collectivization of agricultural land and the exercise of public administration on the forest land after the year 1949, in most cases no changes in the ownership of original land (nationalization etc.) occurred and so the ownership of original real estate from the period before the year 1949 was preserved in principle, while in most cases it was made impossible for the land owner to exercise his/her ownership rights (use was preferred to the ownership); real estate inventory (as a tool of the state) registered the land in the way they were used by cooperative farms and forest management units,
• entry of the ownership right based on the inheritance of original real estate, which was collectivized and to which a possibility of the ownership right exercise was obviated, was mostly possible only by means of the simplified method of inventory (marking by the parcel number, or by the marking which describes that the land is in use of the collective farm, without a complete geometric definition of parcels in the non-built-up area); such simplified evidence has proven unusable in the conditions of the real estate market development, i.e. after the year 1989,
• transfer and transition of ownership right to the land in the non-built-up area, which were permanently taken underneath the constructions (water reservoirs, roads, railways, regulated water courses etc.) by expropriation or, as the case may be, by buying up, was effected only partially; similarly it was with the land in the built-up areas of municipalities under the apartment houses.
• in the period 1949 to 1989 no institution was entrusted with the function of the administration of the information system on the proprietary rights in land in the non-built-up area; after the year 1989 it was necessary to use as a base the land register information system with the state mothballed in the year 1949 and to gradually update this state with all changes that occurred during the period following the year 1949.

Complex, complicated situation in the inventory of the proprietary rights in real estate, which could not be solved without the change of legislative standards, after the year 1989 started to manifest itself more and more by the elements of registration chaos. This was caused by the unfavourable legacy of the past, still unresolved legal relations to real estate in the land register and by the forced removal of private ownership rights to land after the year 1948.

Legal protection together with guaranteeing ownership rights has become one of the aspects of the transformation of society in the Slovak Republic, after the year 1989, on its path to the democratization and restoration of the Republic as a legal state. An important factor of guaranteeing the ownership right to real estate in new social and economical conditions became in the year 1992 Act No. 265/1992 Coll. on the Entry of Proprietary and Some Other Rights and the Act No. 266/1992 Coll. of Slovak National Council on Cadastre of Real Estate, which later were replaced by the Act of the National Council of the Slovak Republic No. 162/1995 Coll. on the Cadastre of Real Estate and on the Entry of Proprietary and Some Other Rights (Cadastre Act).

As of 1st January 1993, the legal regulations of the cadastre entrusted the first-instance decision-making on the fulfilment of legally established conditions of the origin, change and extinction of proprietary and other rights to real estate (decision-making on the permit of the contribution of ownership right to cadastre) to specialized bodies of the state administration of cadastre, namely to the cadastral offices. These decision-making activities thereof have become an analogy of the decision-making activities of the courts of law and thus the activities of cadastral offices started to differ considerably from the typical activities of the state administration bodies and started to involve the elements of judicial activities. In the period of the birth of Cadastre Act, i.e. in the years 1990 – 1992 very demanding and also adversarial discussions were conducted between experts and politicians (national and federal bodies of judiciary offices, of prosecutor’s offices, offices of geodesy and cartography, professional unions and others) on the topic of the competence incorporation of the registration of ownership rights to real estate, i.e. of the then non-updated land register and of the then inventory of real estate, or on the topic of their integration. An important factor in the decision-making on the future resolution was a fact that except for the national offices of geodesy and cartography in Czecho-Slovakia of that time no governmental department has offered another competitive solution model, in which it would assume responsibility for this socially important and professionally very demanding area.

Cadastre of real estate in the Slovak Republic (hereinafter referred to as “Cadastre”) is a geometric determination, list and description of real estate. Part of the cadastre are data on the right to this real estate, namely data on ownership right, right of lien, on easement, on the right corresponding to easement, on pre-emption right, if it is to have effects of property right, on other rights and duties, if these were established as property rights, on the rights resulting from the administration of state property, on the rights resulting from the administration of the municipalities property, on leasehold of land, if these leaseholds continue or are to continue for five years at least, on other facts relating to these rights, especially such as the beginning of the negotiation proceeding, bankruptcy petition against the owner of the real estate, beginning of the proceeding on the exercise of the decision by the sale of the real estate and the beginning of the expropriation negotiation.

Right to the real estate can be registered in the cadastre of real estate only on the condition that this at the same time is registered also the real estate, to which the right is tied.

By means of the cadastre of real estate the State started to carry out some of its functions, namely that of protection of rights as well as the economical-organizational function (establishing conditions for the real estate trade, establishing conditions for business activities, for the land resources protection). Cadastre started to serve also as an information system for tax and duty purposes, for the purposes of creation and protection of the environment, for the protection of cultural monuments, for building other information systems on real estate, for the purposes of providing information on evaluated soil-ecological units and for the protection of mineral resources.

IV. Land administration in Slovakia and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Basic Freedoms

Jurisdictional system of the administration of real estate of each country, which is a candidate for the membership in the European Union, is among other things also confronted with the Convention. According to the Article 6 point 1 of the Convention „In the determination of his civil rights and obligations everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law …“.

Cadastre of Real Estate of the Slovak Republic represents complex organizational and jurisdictional integration of land register functions and cadastral functions. Administration of the cadastre of real estate in the Slovak Republic is within the competence of cadastral offices (at the level of each of 8 regions) or within the competence of district cadastral registries (at the levels of 72 districts) as local authorities of specialized state administration. Proceeding before these authorities is administrative action. In the Slovak Republic ownership rights to real estate are recorded by

• contribution of ownership rights into cadastre of real estate,
• record of ownership right into cadastre of real estate and
• note of ownership right into cadastre of real estate.

System of entries of ownership rights into real estate cadastre according to the Act [2] is based on rules as follows:

Rule of constitutiveness lays in the fact that ownership and other rights origin, change and extinct by the valid decision on the permission of the contribution in the cadastre of real estate.

Registration rule lays in the fact that ownership and other rights origin, change and extinct by virtue of law, by decision of a public authority, by knock down of a vendue master at a vendue, by usucaption, acquisition and processing as well as rights resulting from the administration of the state property or from the administration of the property of a municipality and leasehold of land, if these are to continue for 5 years as a minimum, are entered in the cadastre by record, while this record has no influence on the origin, change or extinction of the above-mentioned rights.

Entries of ownership rights by contribution have legal effects under the Cadastre Act. Contribution is an act of a cadastral authority; by contribution the ownership right origins, changes or extincts. Decision – making concerning the proposal of the contribution of right into cadastre of real estate is an administrative non-contentious proceeding with elements of judicial character. The very fact that it is a non-contentious proceeding was decisive for directing the above-mentioned actions in the first instance (not in the appellate proceedings!!!) to the competence of a state administration authority. In order to increase independence and impartiality, proposal for the contribution of ownership right into cadastre of real estate is decided upon by an employee of a cadastral authority, who has a special professional qualification.

Against the decision, by which the contribution is permitted, a regular appeal under the Act No. 71/1967 Coll. on Administration Procedure (Administration Rules) cannot be filed and neither the reopened proceedings and the review of the decision outside the appellate proceedings under the Act cited; against the decision on the denial of the proposal of the contribution of right into cadastre of real estate an appeal is permissible. If the cadastral authority does not allow an appeal in its entirety, the appeal is decided by a court of law. The court of law either affirms the decision of a cadastral authority, or reverses it and returns the case for further proceedings to a cadastral authority. Against the decision of the court of law a regular appeal is not permissible. Protection by an independent court of law is provided only secondarily, within the framework of the appeal and based on sueing for annulment of transfer by law-court.

Administrative body of the cadastre of real estate shall examine the validity of the contract, agreement, and especially the authority of transferors to dispose of real estate in the view of the existence of their ownership right and in the view of the legal capacity in the time when the act was performed, the trustworthiness of the act of volition, force and clarity of the acts of volition the of the proceeding parties, restrictions on the right of disposing of real estate and other substantive conditions of the legal act validity. On deciding on the permission of the contribution of right in cadastre of real estate the district cadastral registry takes account of the facts in issue and dispositive facts, which could have influence on the permission of the contribution of right of cadastre of real estate (e.g. restrictions in accordance with the Charge and Duties Administration Act, according to the law, according to the Execution Order or under the Act on Bankruptcy and Settlements).

According to the judicature of the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic the decision on permission of the contribution of the right in cadastre of real estate is a magisterial act of the state administration authority, which has constitutive effects in the area of ownership rights. Origin of the ownership right according to the Civil Code is completed by the decision on the permission of the contribution. Under the Cadastre Act, decision-making on the extinction of ownership right entered in the cadastre of real estate falls within the authority of a court of law only. It is necessary to respect the rule of irrevocability of ownership (except for expropriation/compulsory purchase in public interest on the basis of law and for compensation), which is guaranteed by the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. Once the decision on the permission of the contribution comes into effect on the day of its record, it is impermissible for the administrative authority to decide upon the ownership as such. Ownership right and origin, change or extinction, content and exercise thereof belong to the sphere of private law. A legislator explicitly entrusted decision-making on the permission of the contribution of right in cadastre of real estate to a state administration authority. A legislator, however, has not specifically regulated the authorization of the state administration authority to reverse a decision on the permission of contribution and thereby the effects of this act. Reversal of a decision on the permission of the contribution is not only a procedural decision, but it is also a decision by which the administrative authority concerns the ownership right of the acquirer, which was established by the contribution in the cadastre. Authoritative decision on the extinction of ownership right falls within the authority of an independent court of law only.

Intensive discussion was connected with the degree of the compatibility of the competence solution of the land administration applied in the Slovak Republic namely with respect of Article 6 subs. 1 of the Convention. Conclusion was accepted which was based on the fact that

• it is a non-contentious proceeding,
• proposal for the contribution of the ownership right in cadastre is decided by an employee of a cadastral authority, who has a special professional qualification,
• against the decision on the rejection of the contribution of the proposal of right in cadastre is admissible a legal remedy, which is decided upon by a court of law,

in which the fulfilment of the requirements of Article 6 subs. 1 of the Convention was stated, if in this kind of administrative proceeding with the elements of judicial character a specialized state administration authority makes decisions in the first instance.

IV.1 Rules of entries of ownership rights into cadastre of real estate.

Decision-making on the proposal of the contribution of right (especially ownership right) in cadastre of real estate is administrative non-contentious proceeding with the elements of judicial character. Entry of ownership right (and other right) in cadastre of real estate in the Slovak Republic in terms of Cadastre Act is built on the same principles as were the principles of former land registers in Slovakia, or as the case may be the principles of the present-time land register in Austria, Bavaria, Croatia, Slovenia etc.

IV.1.1. Rule of the contribution in the cadastre of real estate

Ownership rights (e.g. according to the Civil Code, or according to § 60 subs. 1 of Civil Code) from contracts or from agreements, as well as ownership rights from the commercial corporation charters are entered into the cadastre of real estate by contribution, unless stated otherwise in the Cadastre Act.
Legal effects of contribution arise on the basis of a legal decision of a cadastral authority on the permission thereof.

IV.1.2 Rule of proposals ordering for the entry in cadastre of real estate

Cadastral authority shall mark the written proposal for the contribution with the date and hour when the proposal was delivered. The cadastral authority shall on the day following the day when the public or other deed for entry was delivered at the latest mark the seal on the change of right in real estate in the ownership document or in the land register, or in the railway register that the ownership right registered in the cadastre is affected by change. The seal shall be marked in the order in which proposals for the entry in cadastre of real estate were delivered.

IV.1.3 Rule of real estate cadastre data trustworthiness

Selected data of the cadastre of real estate (especially geometric determination and georeferencing of real estate and cadastral districts, parcel numbers,nature of land use and land areas, house registry numbers, data on ownership right including identification data on the owners of real estate and other persons entitled to ownership rights and data on basic and detailed minor control) are trustworthy cadastral data unless proven otherwise. Some of these data (e.g. data on ownership rights, parcel number, geometric determination of real estate and sort of a lot) are both trustworthy and binding data of cadastre of real estate, unless proven otherwise.

IV.1.4 Rule of public character of cadastre of real estate

Cadastral documentation is of public character. Everyone is entitled to draw up extracts, copies or sketches thereof or to request to have them done. The publicity of the set of documents is limited. Viewing it and working with it is allowed only to the owners or other entitled persons, or to the person carrying out geodetic activities with land consolidation according to a special ruling or to the person who draws up survey sketches or stakes out the boundaries of lots, or to the person carrying out expert activities in the field of geodesy, cartography and cadastre.

V. Land administration in Slovakia and UN Economic Commission for Europe

On the basis of repeated urgent requests from many Central and East European countries, the Economic Commission for Europe of the UN Economic and Social Council has prepared an extensive analytical study, in which it had defined a complex series of preconditions and rules, on the basis of which the Commission recommends to solve the administration of the information system on real estate and on ownership and some other rights in the transition economy countries.

For the legislative and organizational development in Slovakia after the year 1989 it is especially stimulating, interesting and very inspiring to compare to what degree our present legal regulations are equal to the regulations recommended by the UN Economic Commission for Europe. In this way our hitherto legislative development and the reached state [2] has achieved recognition from the topmost forum.

Directives [6] have allowed to confront the administration of the information system on real estate and on ownership rights related thereto in the transition economy countries with the administration of the countries with a long tradition of market economy and thus enjoy benefits from methods, policies and procedures in land administration, which have developed over the long period in the market economies of the West European countries. As regards many aspects of the comparison, in the present paper we are focusing only on the problems of the jurisdictional integration of land administration.

In the Directives [6] it is emphasized that although the transition economy countries can learn a lot from the Western experience, they nevertheless need or rather enhance their own system within their own social, economic and cultural environment.

For the transition economy countries the Directives [6] recommend to consider the possibility of the implementation the integrated land information systems, in which the formal registration of legally binding information and the technical information on land is subject to supervision, checking and administration in a single statutory facility and is not disintegrated into two or more ministries or offices. This recommendation was adopted by the Economic Commission for Europe of the UN Economic and Social Council after evaluating the comparative analysis of the information systems on real estate and on ownership rights to real estate in all EU countries, including the associated ones.

In some European countries, within the framework of the basic cadastral system there is connected the competence of deciding on the origin, change and extinction of the ownership right, executing changes, land consolidation, cadastral mapping, real estate inventory, inventory of ownership and other rights, valuation of real estate and taxation. However, in many parts of Europe the cadastre has developed only as a basis for land taxation, while legal procedures of land administration are solved separately and ownership right is entered in land registers, which has resulted in a double system. Directives [6] advise that the introduction of a double system (in former Czecho-Slovakia, its entire functionality ended on 1st January 1951) results in double efforts and to the more complicated procedures of land administration than is actually necessary. In the long term it will be important for these separated systems to be integrated in one common system.

VI. Land administration in Slovakia in relation to its functionality guarantee (the cadastre data base complexity)

Strategic instrument in the development of relations between the Slovak Republic and the European Union, which became part of the strengthened pre-entry strategy of the EU associated countries, became the National Programme for the adoption of the acquis communautaire in the Slovak Republic, adopted in December 1997. The National Programme laid down the double programming of priorities recommended by the European Commission, aiming to help Slovakia to prepare itself for the entry and on the other hand to provide funds intended for the implementation of these priorities. The priority areas for the entry were reflected in concrete, especially middle-term measures. At the same time it was defined that the National Programme with the given priorities is a programme under development, that it is open material, which is regularly monitored and evaluated on the side of the European Commission and therefore it can be flexibly adapted and revised in accordance with the annual report of the European Commission for the EU Council.

In view of the fact that the Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Authority of the Slovak Republic as a central organ of state administration responsible for the section of land administration, does not have its partner-counterpart in the European Union conditions, the middle-term priority from the National Programme ”Completion of registration – inventory of land ownership as a basis of the land market development” was included among the most important measures related to structural policies and rural development policy: Ministry of Agriculture of the Slovak Republic and the Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Authority of the Slovak Republic participate as coordinators. The essence of the task consists in so-called registers of renewed land inventory that is in the completion of the database on real estate by data on ownership rights from the present day 63 % of real parcels to complete 100 % so as to all operations at the real estate market could be performed on-line. This data transformation from the previous inventories and from single documents, that is from their latent form, to the information system of the cadastre of real estate has proven to be especially demanding for the funds of the State; in this connection the modelling of its completion by the end of the year 2002 proved to be unfeasible. Due to non-fulfilment of this pledge made to the European Union the start of the full real estate market in the Slovak Republic is being postponed.

VII. Land administration in Slovakia in relation to its functionality guarantee (procedural speed of the cadastral authority proceedings)

Problems of the function and activities of cadastral authorities is not a direct subject of the law approximation of the Slovak Republic to the law of the European Communities. However, these problems are regulated indirectly, namely in the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 1, protocol 1 – continuity of tenure, in this connection it is necessary to provide the real estate cadastre activities so as to be effective and to create conditions enabling the exercise ownership or tenure. As a consequence of the absence of the European model solution of land administration, or of real estate administration, in the Central and East European countries more or less different organizational and jurisdiction systems of solution were developed. Despite the given mutual difference of systems, basically one common feature can be identified in these systems, namely the effort to fulfil its basic function, the guarantor of which is a state authority, deciding, on the basis of law and within the law on the origin, change and extinction of ownership and other rights and providing information from this information system to the state. In general, the State has made a commitment in the Act, or in sub-legal standards, that the procedures concerned will be performed in certain stipulated legal periods. Fulfilment of these legal periods, or rather the degree of the default thereon, is in single countries at the same time the image of the accordance of the period needs of society and of the budgetary possibilities of the state budget, the image of satisfaction or the degree of non-satisfaction of the participants with the procedural real periods concerned, but in general it is also an image of the importance attached by certain societies to these problems in the present time of economic non- standardness. This non-standardness is characterized by dramatic year-on-year increases of the number of filings to single authorities, insufficient ability of state budgets to reflect this increase and the absent political will to transfer the financial consequences of the procedures concerned to the parties of the filings; there is provided an explanation that ”it is about removing the injustice that happened in the past and therefore the State is obliged to finance this (but the State is not able to do so)”.

Conclusion

One of the most important steps during the transition from the centrally planned economy to the market economy was creation, or rather revitalization of the private ownership of real estate concurrently with the equalization of all kinds of ownership. In order to be able to make investments, investors must have confidence that the property they are creating will be built on the land to which a secure title exist. This must be a clear and solid legal framework of the administration of the information system on the ownership and rental right in land.

Requirements of the land market development in the stage of economical transformation and the requirements of guaranteeing the ownership of real estate in the legal state also in Slovakia have definitely set a goal to solve the separation of the ownership of especially agricultural land and forest land in non-built-up areas from their use, which was inherited from the past. Cadastre of real estate in less than twenty years has gradually and systematically solved this task as priority, namely by the implementation of the Cadastre Act No. 162/1995 Coll. and by the Act No. 180/1995 Coll. on some measures taken in order to arrange the land property.

Jurisdictional solution of the land administration which has been in force in Slovakia since 1st January 1993, proved to be viable and successful and within the framework of given budget possibilities it fulfils its tasks defined by law. The essence of this jurisdictional solution consists in the first instance decision-making on the fulfilment of substantive conditions laid down by law for the origin, change and extinction of ownership and other rights of possession (decision-making on the permission of the contribution of the ownership in cadastre of real estate) is entrusted to the specialized authorities of the state administration of cadastre of real state, namely to the cadastral offices. This decision-making function has become a parallel to the decision-making function of courts of law and thus involves the elements of judicial activities. This jurisdictional solution was effective also in comparison with the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms as amended by Protocol Nr. 11, Rome, Italy, 4.11.1950), as well as in comparison with the Directive for Land Administration with special regard to the countries of the transitional economy of the UN Economical Commission for Europe [6]. Certain criticism directed at the temporary lower performance of cadastral authorities is connected with the budget deficit; without the budget deficit having been removed, the improvement cannot be expected, neither by splitting of the present integrated system into two separate systems. It will be necessary to remove the present salary and structural rigidity of cadastral offices by means of

1. increasing the effectiveness by providing the direct relationship between the quantity, or rather the quality of performance and the reward system,
2. increasing the effectiveness by enabling the system respond flexibly to the changed conditions, especially concerning the creation of new jobs depending on the requirements and thus improve presently insufficient staffing of cadastral work places,
3. more distinct redirecting of the revenues from the administration fees and of the revenues obtained on the basis of the price regime for the budget support of the cadastral offices themselves and thus improving the current insufficient technical and material provision of the cadastral office activities.

Legislation of the Community is not being introduced in the vacuum. It is based on the legal system of each Member State and in some cases even on the framework of international law. Its introduction and enforcement depends on the existence of adequate administrative and legal system in every Member State, as well as on quite a number of technical and professional entities in the private sector.

Transformation of the political and economical systems in the Central and Eastern Europe to the systems compatible with the European Union represented a complex process. It concerned the strengthening of democracy and civil society, implementation of stable macroeconomic conceptions, privatization and industrial restructuring, legal and institutional changes and liberalization of trade, directed to the free trade with the Union and neighbouring countries. Nevertheless, the main responsibility for the success of this process was carried by the associated countries themselves.

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