Vello Rekkaro, PhD MSc, associate professor emeritus of Tallinn University of Technology, founding member of the people’s movement Legal Balance, Association for Domestic Law
The Center Party wants to move forward as a united and strong Estonian political party, on which major initiatives in our country depend. That is how the political party was created as a transmitter of the successful actions of the People’s Front and to implement the values. The support of the people played an important role in the restoration of Estonia’s independence, so that our representatives at the Congress of People’s Deputies in Moscow could act wisely and forcefully. The so-called transitional government led by Edgar Savisaare then tried to secure the socio-economic foundations for the development of the new statehood.
Re-independent Estonia began to reorganize its life, and now a new young generation has already come of age, having grown up in free Estonia. Unfortunately, it often seems that many people do not understand what the state is and what we have it for, nor that power is not a privilege, but a duty and responsibility towards all its inhabitants. But those who don’t know the past live without the future, which means they can’t make the right decisions. The roots of the future are in the past – that must not be forgotten!
In those revolutionary times, a colleague from the Technical University, Tiit Made, who worked as a people’s representative in Toompea for nine years, participated in the work of the XII Supreme Council of the Estonian SSR and the parliament that renamed itself the Supreme Council of the Republic of Estonia, which adopted “in addition to the historic decision to restore independence, a whole series of fundamental decisions and laws for the current organization of the country’s life”. (2018 Titus Made In Politics in Revolutionary Times, p. 22).
Heated debates also took place on economic issues and especially around the infamous Property Reform Basics Act (ORAS). The content of the topic is most clearly reflected in the author’s statement: “The general catchphrase was that under the leadership of the reform minister (Liia Hänni-VR), even the cow’s pups became the rightful owners.” (ibid p. 150).
In the law on the basis of property reform, which was adopted on June 13, 1991, the request for reparation of the wrong done by violating the right of ownership in the past is also stated as a goal, but at the same time: “In the course of property reform, the return or compensation of property to former owners or their legal successors must not harm the interests of other persons protected by law or cause new injustice”. At the sessions of the Supreme Council of Estonia on May 8 and 10, 1991. brought when talking about property reform activities Jüri Raidla turnover of words “new repression”, “by which we mean harming the interests of bona fide acquirers of repressed property and tenants living in returned housing”. Jaak Allik names ” for robbing the way of carrying out the property reform and points out that the acquisition of easily obtained property in this way may be declared invalid. … Allik sees directly that the privatization taking place in the course of the property reform will go into the pockets of a narrow faction, which is so contrary to the people’s sense of justice that one day they may still be declared null in the transaction.” (2009 Jaan Omblus Lost Homes, pp. 114, 118)
Today, it is already a distant past for many, but for those who actively participated in the efforts at that time, it can also be an ongoing action for a better Estonia, a decades-long struggle for the rule of law and legal balance in our society. The Center Party, which emerged from the People’s Front, has understood this and reflected it in its programmatic documents.
In the election of local governments in 2021. was the platform of the Central Party “The right move!” 3. in subsection “Socially balanced Estonia” p. 6 formulated specific tasks for local governments: “We will correct the injustice created during the property reform for people who could not privatize their home and had to give it up without compensation.”
The tenants who lived in the buildings returned to the former owners and their heirs were not treated equally with other people who lived on the state-owned surfaces during the privatization of the dwellings, and in this connection, many of them faced great problems. Our public opinion also agrees: 2020. a survey conducted in the summer showed that more than 70% of Estonian residents think that forced tenants were treated unfairly during the property reform.
I wrote to Chancellor of Justice Ülle Madis about the actions of representatives of forced tenants in Keskvätti, who highlighted: “The housing problems of the tenants of the returned dwellings had to be solved primarily through local governments.” Today, all these measures for redressing the moral and material suffering suffered by forced tenants also belong to the field of social policy, since the past decades have added 30 years to the life span of all forced tenants.
Since members of the political party are worried about the decrease in voter support in the last Riigikogu elections, one of the factors may be the delay in redressing the injustice suffered by 100,000 forced tenants (Jaak Leimann at Riigikogu session 17 Sept. 1997 – J. Ìmblus ibid p. 187), e.g. in Tallinn, where the Center Party is in power. Why aren’t concrete steps taken by the city administration so that, in cooperation with the state, the essential solution of this failed problem can be started?
