Translated material
Apartment verdict
The Constitutional Court advocated extending the deadline for free privatization of housing
The Constitutional Court can now be considered the main defender of the rights of hundreds of thousands of residents of municipal apartments in Russian cities. Yesterday's verdict of the judges, who declared unconstitutional the legislative ban on the privatization of apartments received from municipalities after March 1, 2005, will probably receive a much greater resonance than the attempts of State Duma deputies to urgently secure priority in the matter of tireless care for tenants.The decision of the Constitutional Court on the law on the implementation of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation, in fact, only emphasizes the mistakes previously made by the Duma, which deputies have already begun to correct. It was even announced between two meetings of the lower chamber, where amendments to the Housing Code regarding the revision of the deadlines for the privatization of housing were discussed last Friday and will be discussed today. Moreover, when accepting this case, the judges already knew for sure that parliament was actively preparing amendments. But yesterday the deputies, who at the beginning of the year voted for the quick move of the Constitutional Court to new apartments in St. Petersburg, received only the supporting part - comments and choral approval of the court verdict.
The judges, of course, did not encroach on the right of legislators to limit the terms of privatization of housing received under the terms of social rent, and the Housing Code itself. They only pointed out that the Constitution does not allow an arbitrary watershed between citizens who applied for improved housing conditions on the same grounds, but at different times.
Let us recall that federal legislation prohibited the transfer into private ownership of apartments received from municipalities after the Housing Code of the Russian Federation came into force, that is, after March 2005. This immediately caused a surge of indignation, since those few cities whose authorities today have the financial ability to provide housing for social rent are now paying by square meters for obligations that were 15-20 years old. The situation was aggravated by the fact that among the dissatisfied were a large number of veterans of the Great Patriotic War, to whom the Moscow government and the administration of other cities allocated a large number of apartments for the 60th anniversary of the Victory. When veterans, who had been waiting for years for their living conditions to improve, discovered that they could not become owners of the square meters allocated to them, lawsuits began to pour into the courts. The family of disabled war veteran Khaidar Orlov managed to reach the Supreme Court and initiate a request to the Constitutional Court.
At the same time, complaints were pouring in about the two-year restriction introduced at the beginning of 2005 on the privatization of apartments received before the Housing Code came into force. Since the spring of 2005, there has been a crush in the registration authorities - employers are trying to jump into the last carriage and exercise their right to a one-time privatization of real estate before January 1, 2007. And although last year the State Duma began to actively discuss the possibility of extending the privatization period for several more years, complaints still reached the Constitutional Court.
When the Constitutional Court began considering these complaints in April, the legislative branch proposed not to spread its efforts and wait for parliament to adopt the necessary amendments. But the representative of the State Duma in the Constitutional Court, Elena Mizulina, failed to convince the judges of the need to postpone the meeting. Last Friday, deputies tried to get ahead of the court by unexpectedly voting to extend the deadline for the privatization of apartments until 2010 as part of amendments related to the so-called “dacha amnesty.” And today, amendments to the Housing Code prepared by deputy Galina Khovanskaya are scheduled to be considered - her bill involves lifting the ban on the privatization of apartments received after March 2005. According to Ms. Khovanskaya, restrictions should apply not to those who waited for an apartment after March 1, 2005, but to those who registered for housing after this date according to the standards of the new housing complex and will not receive their square meters under social rent very soon .
But the court did not wait for the final work on the mistakes. Yesterday, the Constitutional Court recognized that the legislator has the right to limit the period of free privatization of real estate (the verdict refers to 2007, but in fact we can already confidently talk about 2010), but indicated, in fact, that the ban should come into force simultaneously for all citizens and within a reasonable time frame, and not on an emergency basis. Noting that we are talking about those on the waiting list who were registered on the same basis, the court declared the loss of rights of that part of the citizens who received an apartment after March 1, 2005 illegal.
Yabloko activist Galina Khovanskaya, who feared that her amendments would be blocked by the party in power, believes that the Constitutional Court verdict will help her begin adjusting the Housing Code. “The court has already made a positive decision on one of the provisions of my bill,” she said in an interview with a Vremya Novostey correspondent, emphasizing that restrictions on privatization should be introduced only after the state has fulfilled all its obligations to those on the waiting list. registered before the implementation of the residential complex.
United Russia also verbally expresses approval of the judges' decision. Chairman of the Moscow City Duma Commission on Urban Affairs and Housing Policy Stepan Orlov told Vremya Novostey that he “welcomes the court’s decision, since the ban on privatization, which included war veterans, was a blatant injustice.” Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Property Viktor Pleskachevsky also speaks positively about the Constitutional Court’s verdict, especially since the court did not challenge the right of legislators to stop free privatization. “The decision of the Constitutional Court has two parts: the first says that it is impossible to introduce a ban on privatization starting next Monday, since this will have serious social consequences, the second part says that the court considers the norm that introduces a restriction on free privatization, because everyone understands that free privatization must end someday,” Mr. Pleskachevsky told RIA Novosti.
However, it is unlikely that representatives of the executive authorities of regions and municipalities will join the general rejoicing, for whom yesterday’s verdict of the Constitutional Court means an inevitable reduction in their circulating housing stock. For example, the Moscow City Hall does not hide the fact that the capital will be able to effectively solve the housing problems of low-income Muscovites only if the square meters built at the expense of the city budget do not immediately go into private hands, but remain in the municipal housing stock for the so-called “revolving » use.