Viam muniunto! О возложении на частных лиц бремени содержания муниципальной собственности (прилегающих территорий общего пользования): конституционные аспекты глазами цивилиста

Закон. 2024. № 12. С. 123–133.

Тузов Д. О.

Modern legal orders are well aware of the principle, originating in Roman law, according to which the owner bears the burden of maintenance of his property. However, even in ancient law there were exceptions to this principle: for example, the Laws of the XII Tables imposed on the owners of land adjacent to public roads the obligation to maintain the latter. Possible exceptions to this principle — in accordance with the law or contract — are also allowed by the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. Taking advantage of this possibility, legislative bodies of constituent entities of the Russian Federation and local self-government bodies in the regional laws and local rules of improvement adopted by them have often imposed and still impose the obligation to maintain public areas on private owners of real estate adjacent to these areas. Nevertheless, until relatively recently, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation strictly followed the above basic principle in its practice and, relying also on the constitutional norm on the exclusive federal competence in the field of civil legislation, refused to recognise the legal validity of such norms at the regional and local level. The situation, however, changed in 2018, with the entry into force of amendments to the Town Planning Code of the Russian Federation and legislation on local self-government, by which the burden of maintenance of
municipal property in question was explicitly provided for already at the federal level.
The article discusses the validity and expediency of these legislative novelties, analyses the judicial practice based on them. It is concluded that they clearly contradict three fundamental constitutional principles and therefore cannot be recognised as corresponding to the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

Keywords: частная собственность, гражданское право, конституционное право, муниципальное право, право собственности, Roman law, римское право, constitutional law, public property, private property, municipal law, публичная собственность, источники гражданского права, property right, civil law, burden of property maintenance, sources of civil law, local rule-making, бремя содержания собственности, местное нормотворчество