Studies of problems of agrarian law (based on the works of O.L. Dubovik and other professors)

Bogolyubov Sergei Aleksandrovich Doctor of Law Scientific Director of the Department of Environmental and Agrarian Legislation, Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation 117218, Russia, Moscow, B.cheremushkinskaya str., 34 bogolyubovsa@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Overcoming the problems of the agro-industrial complex is facilitated by conducting regular studies of the state and trends in the development of agrarian law, the use of interdisciplinary approaches, systematic comparative studies of domestic legislation and legislation of foreign countries, supranational entities based on constitutional institutions.

     The Law of the Russian Federation on the Amendment to the Constitution of the Russian Federation No. 1-FKZ dated March 14, 2020, paragraph "d" of Article 72 of the Constitution on the assignment to the joint jurisdiction of the Russian Federation and its subjects, along with nature management, environmental protection, environmental safety, specially protected natural territories, is supplemented by "agriculture", which raises its constitutional status and agrarian law receives additional development impulses, including for the integration of its legal institutions, categories, and requirements.

       It does not seem accidental to place this supplement in the mentioned list, since the agro-industrial complex is one of the main consumers of natural resources, pollutants of the human environment, which is reflected in a number of scientific papers ^{[13; 15; 19]}.

Agricultural production, like many other industries, carries risks of causing environmental damage, requires increased attention to meeting the requirements of rational, sustainable use, reproduction of natural resources.

      Multilateral legal assistance should be provided to the implementation of the norms of Article 75-1 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation on creating conditions for sustainable economic growth of the country and improving the welfare of citizens, in achieving which agrarians play a primary role: the third basic principle of land legislation (Article 1 of the RF CC of October 25, 2001) assumes the priority of protecting human life and health; among the basic principles of 3 of the Federal Law "On Environmental Protection" of January 10, 2002) provides for a scientifically based combination of environmental, economic and social interests of a person, society and the state in order to ensure a favorable environment.

      The agrarian situation needs the application of the constitutional provision of the same article of the Basic Law on guaranteeing respect for Human Labor – through state support for agricultural producers, rural development, mechanization and chemicalization of agriculture, elimination of significant differences between town and country, physical and mental labor. In modern conditions of priority of sustainable development models, the preservation of its economic and social orientation in conjunction with compliance with environmental requirements during agricultural production is becoming increasingly important, taking into account the aggravation of food problems on the planet, the turbulence of international relations, the illegal unprecedented announcement and forced overcoming of various kinds of sanctions imposed on a number of states ^{[11; 13]}.

     For a qualified solution of emerging problems, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the place and role of agrarian law in the legal system.  In Russian science, judgments have been formed about agrarian (agricultural) legislation as a necessary, full-fledged branch of national legislation and international law, its subject, content, specific methods of regulation, management features, the deep and unique content of this phenomenon in the system of acts devoted to important property, administrative, urban planning, and other diverse social relations.

      Thus, the scientific efforts of agrarian lawyers professors G.A. Aksenenka, M.I. Kozyr, Z.S. Belyaeva, I.F. Kazmin, A.I. Bobylev, M.I. Palladina, G.V. Chubukov, I.F. Pankratov, N.N. Vedenin, G.E. Bystrov, as well as V.V. Ustyukova, M.S. Pashova continue, V.S. Eliseeva, E.L. Minina, etc., defending the necessity, independence of complex agrarian legislation, the relations regulated by it. These scientists have achieved in previous decades the inclusion of agrarian law, despite skepticism, doubts, in the autonomous specialty "jurisprudence" 12.00.06, and now in the new nomenclature of research topics on public and private law, approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation ^{[15; 16; 17, pp. 63-65; 18; 21; 22]}.

      The extensive codification of agrarian, land, other natural resource, environmental legislation carried out in previous decades required not only theoretically and practically sound proposals for the formulation of prescriptions understandable to citizens, but also comprehension, clarification of the requirements of the adopted federal and regional laws ^{[7; 8; 9]}. Studies of the interaction and contradictions of the EU's agrarian and environmental policies, designed to ensure the development of "eco-friendly" agriculture in Russia and other countries, had a considerable response, when the analysis of modern EU agricultural policy focused on the goals, ways to optimize it, emerging, possible and predictable conflicts, the need to find a balance of environmental, social and economic interests ^{[4; 5; 6]}.

     Reinforcement by the law enforcement sphere is important for all branches of law. Due to the radical change in the socio-economic formation, the preparation of a new Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in the first half of the 1990s to replace the Criminal Code of 1960 took a noticeable period: the problems were reduced not only to the statement, clarification, registration of qualitatively new socially dangerous acts in the field of agrarian, entrepreneurial, and other economic activities, but also to the legalization, protection of a full-fledged the market of agricultural products, lands, forms of ownership of them, other natural resources and objects provided for in Article 9 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993.

      Science and practice had to find a place in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for such elements of economic crimes related to the agro-industrial complex as:  

     obstruction of legitimate entrepreneurial or other activities (Article 169), registration of knowingly illegal land transactions, deliberate understatement of payments for land if these acts were committed out of self-interest or other personal interest by an official using his official position (Article 170), illegal entrepreneurship (Article 171), prevention, restriction or elimination of competition (Article 178) – Chapter 22 "Crimes in the sphere of economic activity";

       production, storage, transportation or sale of goods and products, performance of works or provision of services that do not meet safety requirements (Article 238), cruel treatment of animals that caused their death or injury, if this act was committed out of hooligan or mercenary motives, or with the use of sadistic methods, or in the presence of minors (Article 245) – Chapter 25 "Crimes against public health and public morality";

      violation of veterinary rules and regulations established to combat plant diseases and pests (Article 249), damage to land (Article 254), illegal extraction of aquatic animals and plants (Article 256), violation of rules for the protection of fish stocks (Article 257), illegal felling of trees and shrubs (Article 260) – Chapter 26 "Environmental crimes" of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation .

     For such a distribution according to the chapters of the Criminal Code, it was important to separate, according to the degree of harmfulness or public danger, almost equally formulated administrative offenses from crimes – such as unauthorized seizure of land plots, other natural objects, poisoning, cluttering, pollution and other types of damage to the land by harmful products of economic or other activities due to violations of the rules for handling fertilizers, growth stimulants plants, pesticides and other dangerous chemical or biological substances during their storage, use and transportation – for inclusion in the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation or in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation of the appropriate type of legal, administrative or criminal liability.

     The discussions concerned not only the placement of a crime in the appropriate chapter, depending on the degree of harm to human health or the environment, the subject, goals and level of danger of a socially significant act, the guilt of the person who committed it, but also the hitherto unknown title of chapter 26 "Environmental crimes": firstly, not everyone recognized and they understood the new term "ecology", which literally meant "the science of the house", although it was already mentioned several times in the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 1993, in federal and regional laws, and gradually entered the legislative lexicon.

        Secondly, the proposed and adopted list of crimes of Chapter 26 of the Criminal Code gave an idea of a broad understanding of "ecology", "ecological", in particular environmental law, where, in this scenario, it was possible to conditionally include not only, of course, environmental law, but also land, natural resource law, that is, to recognize in To a certain extent, environmental law is a complex, superstructure, broader branch of law that unites both the emerging, actively developing environmental law and the long-standing land, water, forest, mountain, faunal branches of Russian law.

     Criminal-legal, criminological support of agrarian and environmental law has been manifested in more than a dozen anti-corruption forums held annually in ISPI (where round tables and sections on the specifics of preventing corruption in agriculture and ecology are held), in the works of O.L. Dubovik and A.E. Zhalinsky "Causes of environmental crimes" (Moscow, 1988), O.L. Dubovik, T.V. Rednikova et al. "Legal responsibility for environmental offenses" (Moscow, 2011) ^[20].

     The research and development of modern Russian legal life depends on individuals showing samples of efficiency, qualifications, ability to respond to emerging topical issues; such an example was Professor O. L. Dubovik (1949-2021), author of more than four hundred unique scientific works that distinguish the very set of topical legal topics chosen for study, their genre, consistency, consistency of scientific search. Her fundamental monograph "The Mechanism of Law in Environmental Protection" in 1994 testifies to her appeal to the most important problems of reality that require their theoretical and practical solution.       She was the organizer and responsible editor of Comments on the Water (M, 2011) and Land (M, 2013, etc.) codes of the Russian Federation, to the difficult and long-developed federal laws "On the transfer of land or land plots from one category to another" and "On Land Management" (2012), was part of the author's teams textbooks "Land Law" (M. 2013, 2014, etc.),^{[10; 14]}.

The sometimes excessive obsession of jurisprudence with the formulation of legislative norms, fetishization, exaggeration of their significance for the establishment, transformation, termination of legal relations ^[1] suggests the need to shift part of the attention to improving their effectiveness, to the real mechanisms of their action, when the functioning of legal methods of influence does not stop at the formulation of forecasts, principles, prescriptions, but continues in legal realization, is not closed in the lines of regulatory legal acts ^{[2; 3; 12; 19; 24]}. Olga Leonidovna was the responsible editor of the practical manual for the environmental police (Moscow, 2003), organized commenting on legislative acts, which was distinguished by the consistency, scientific validity of the structure of acts, interpretation of the practical orientation of the content, explanation of legal categories, objective and subjective sides, objects and subjects of commented legal relations, the allocation of legal hypotheses, dispositions, sanctions.      

        The versatility of research was manifested in attempts to solve the problems of illegal trade in land, forests, valuable animals, other natural resources and objects, the natural environment surrounding humans, preventing corruption, ensuring proper certification, licensing,. The last monograph published during O.L. Dubovik's lifetime was "Ecological conflictology (prevention and resolution of ecological and legal conflicts)" (Moscow, 2019), which is some result of her long-term topical research.

Regular informing of the Russian public about the state and development of agrarian, land, and environmental law abroad, and foreign readers about Russian legislation, domestic experience, constant review of the works of legal scholars in Russia and other European countries, analysis, generalization and commenting on the norms and systems of agricultural, environmental law of the European Union continue to be important [6. p. 80-82]. Olga Leonidovna actively cooperated with Russian and foreign organizations, took part in joint projects, organized collections of scientific works of scientists from different countries, such as "Modern environmental law in Russia and abroad" (Moscow, 2001), "Modern medical Law in Russia and abroad" (Moscow, 2003), "Environmental Law the Law of Eastern Europe" (Moscow, 2018).

     Scientific communication, exchange of opinions, scientific and practical discussions of practitioners and scientists carried out at international scientific and practical conferences regularly organized at the IGiP RAS and IZiSP, held for decades at the Faculty of Law of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, annual gatherings of scientists, teachers of environmental law, are beneficial for improving the effectiveness of research on current problems of agrarian and environmental legislation., land law and meetings of the School of Young Environmental Lawyers, at meetings of the Council on Agrarian Policy of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation; such meetings of agricultural relations specialists become useful in cases of announcing constructive positions, new proposals, bringing their content to listeners, many of whom introduce the ideas they have heard into legal life ^[24-28].  The last time O.L. Dubovik spoke in December 2019 at an International scientific and Practical conference on the urgent tasks of implementing constitutional principles in the field of sustainable development and environmental protection at the Moscow Institute of Geodesy and Cartography (MIIGAiKe), answered questions, said goodbye before her departure to her daughter in Germany ^[23]. 

       Regular scientific research on the problems of agrarian legislation and its application cannot stand still, but are designed to respond to the tactical and strategic demands of modernity – fuller use of existing and search for new ways of successful management, ensuring food sovereignty and security of the country, effective use of forms of ownership of natural resources, their protection from pollution, cluttering, squandering, decent treatment of production and consumption waste in a civilized society.

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