The Right to Common Land: The Challenges of Protection and Legal Responsibility for the Violation of the Right

At the present stage of socio-economic development of Russia, special relevance is given to implementation and protection of the right to the common use of land, which allows citizens to move freely and reside on a variety of land and territories, thereby realizing their social, cultural, political, and other rights, and satisfying the everyday needs. Lands with the regime of common use of land is a de facto recognition of the legal basis of the right to the common land. However, this right is not sufficiently secured and guaranteed, including measures of responsibility and lack of citizen to defend their individual rights by means of civil and de facto judicial means. It is revealed that the mechanisms for the implementation of the right to common land or remain underdeveloped and insufficient for the full realization of this right, or non-existent at all. In practice, it is possible to refer to administrative protection of the right of free access of citizens to the water and its foreshore, while the protection of the rights of citizens against unauthorized access restrictions on public land, public access to forests remain underdeveloped. There is also a need to establish mechanisms for the implementation and protection of the right to the individual level, including with the use of civil law instruments

common land, land protection, public law, judicial protection, administrative protection, access restriction, the realization of the right, seizure of land, access to water, access to foreshore

1. Право на свободный доступ к реке : пресс-релиз прокуратуры Калужской области от 21.01.2011 // URL: http://prokuror-kaluga.ru/razyasnenie-3164.html.