In the city of Veliky Novgorod, a visiting session of the Russian Federation Presidential Council for Codification and Enhancement of Civil Legislation was held. Among the meeting participants was Tikhon Podshivalov, Head of the Department of Civil Law and Civil Legal Procedures and Deputy Director for Research of the Institute of Law at our university.
Besides the Council members, Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Maxim Reshetnikov and President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) Alexander Shokhin also participated in the meeting.
Six draft federal laws were discussed:
- The first was a draft law “On the limitation period for claims for deprivatization”. It was proposed to add two new paragraphs to Art. 217 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation that would set general rules of calculating the action limitations on such claims: 3 years since the moment a violation becomes known of, but no more than 10 years. For several years now, there have been heated discussions of the issues of delaying the requests on the seizure of previously privatized property, and the legislative proposal should draw a line under these discussions.
The following arguments were put forward as a substantiation of the proposal:
- First, by now, major part of privatized property has not been preserved in its original state; enterprises have been reconstructed, and production, most often, updated;
- Second, in most cases, the legal bodies that participated in privatization are not available anymore, and this leads to the impossibility of a recourse claim from modern owners of the property being withdrawn;
- Third, the rights of the current minority shareholders, who purchased shares of the previously privatized enterprises after their public offering in the security market, are not protected;
- Fourth, there is a certain share of guilt on the part of the government since it could not ensure the control during privatization, while citizens see the seizure of such privatized property as a legal injustice;
- Fifth, 110000 enterprises were privatized, and the fact that there are not limitations to the period for requests on the seizure creates an uncertainty zone and leads to current owners of these enterprises stopping to invest money into the development of their business for fear of its possible seizure.
As a result of the discussion, the Council came to a conclusion to conceptually support the draft law, and that the suggested comments would be finalized during the second reading.
- The second one was a draft law “On distinguishing the “medical service” and “medial help” terms in the Consumer Right Protection Law”. It received negative opinions since it aimed at putting medical services off the scope of the Consumer Right Protection Law, and that means that the draft law authors wish to exclude medical services from the private law relations and make it belong to the institute of public law, what goes against the principle of equality.
- The third draft law was “On payment for the communal-property public utilities in case there are metering devices installed”. This draft law aims at unifying the approaches to payment for the use of public utilities. It received positive opinions but with comments: not to completely exclude the option of standard payment in case metering devices fail or are not verified; make the norm in Art. 156 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation dispositive; the law’s entry into force should coincide with the coming of the new calendar year and not with the moment the law is published – this would make the process of recalculations easier.
- The fourth draft law “On consolidation of the “blood relations” term in the Family Code of the Russian Federation and the Laws on Guardianship” was unseconded since it did not take into consideration the difference between blood relation and relation by marriage, which is established by the current legislation, and even law students are aware of it. The proposed amendment doubles the essences without a real need for it and is aimed at excessive regulation of what is already regulated.
- Two draft laws were “On prohibiting settlements in cash that exceed 5 million roubles for real estate transactions”. The draft law did not receive support for a number of reasons:
- the draft law idea is not consistent with a provision of Art. 55 of the Russian Federation Constitution regarding the fact that restrictions of rights are possible only for the purposes of protecting the foundations of the constitutional system, while the explanatory memorandum states that this law aims at fighting conversion of money into cash;
- the draft law restricts the freedom-of-contract principle, which among other things also covers the settlement conditions;
- there are doubts about the practicability of the proposal: not all residential communities in our country have a stable Internet connection available, in order to ensure noncash settlements in real estate transactions;
- the draft law under consideration cannot solve the problem of converting money into cash since individuals can be paid salary in cash, so they can possess cash on legal grounds.
Final texts of conclusions have already been prepared and will be forwarded to the initiators of the draft laws.