Property
The 2011 Land Code over acute land scarcity and returnee claims
The Land Code of 2011 provides for registration and recognises customary occupation as convertible to title. The dominant legal problem is the restitution of land to refugees returning after decades of displacement, handled by a specialised commission whose decisions have been contentious.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — Communal land services register; the CNTB and the ordinary courts address competing and restitution claims.
- Deadline — Certificat foncier: issued by the communal land service on adjudication
- Deadline — Restitution claim: lodged with the land commission
Governing law
- Loi n° 1/13 du 9 août 2011 portant révision du Code foncier du Burundi
- Loi establishing the Commission Nationale des Terres et autres Biens
- Loi on expropriation in the public interest
In practice
Burundi has among the highest rural population densities in Africa, and successive waves of displacement mean that the same plot is frequently claimed by a returning refugee and by a family that has occupied it for thirty years. The land commission was created to resolve exactly this, and the legitimacy of its decisions — particularly after its powers were widened in 2014 — is itself a political fault line.