The Constitutional Court allowed the municipalities not to pay for the cleaning of ownerless garbage

Municipalities do not have to pay for the cleanup of abandoned landfills on undelimited state-owned land. This decision was announced on Tuesday by the Constitutional Court (CC), referring to the new provisions of the Constitution on the unity of public power. The federal legislator should make the necessary changes to the current legal regulation, including determining the ownership, distribution and sources of financial support for the authority to eliminate garbage, the court’s decision says.

The reason for checking the laws “On the Enactment of the Land Code”, “On the General Principles of Organization of Local Self-Government (LSG)” and “On Production Wastes” were complaints from the administrations of the city of Kodinsk (Krasnoyarsk Territory) and the Novosibirsk District of the Novosibirsk Region. Municipalities did not agree that they were obliged to clean up landfills in state-owned territories, because such powers were not supported by appropriate funding.

However, the courts in both cases came to the conclusion that since local authorities are authorized to dispose of state lands, they should be responsible for everything that happens in their jurisdictions.

The applicants disagreed with this approach. The Law on Local Self-Government and the Budget Code expressly prohibit municipalities from participating in the exercise of state powers and resolving issues that fall within the competence of state authorities at the expense of local budgets. This contradicts the constitutional principle of LSG independence and violates the principle of the unity of public authority, they insisted.

Sources of funding for such work have already been identified, the government objected. To eliminate the damage caused by landfills to natural resources, municipalities have the right to use revenues from land plots, the ownership of which is not demarcated, as well as payments against fines for negative environmental impact, 60% of which goes to municipal budgets, explained to participants during public hearings on Director of the Department of Natural Resources, Land Relations and Agro-Industrial Complex of the Government of the Russian Federation Elena Kovaleva in this case. In addition, the state actively assists local authorities in the fight against garbage within the framework of the Clean Country federal project.

However, the Constitutional Court came to the conclusion that such a mechanism cannot be considered effective: it does not allow taking into account the size of the landfill, local budget revenues, the liquidity of the land plot, the presence or absence of the possibility to provide it for use on investment terms, and other factors.

And federal programs are designed mainly for the elimination of large landfills in cities, the decision of the Constitutional Court notes. Meanwhile, the task of eliminating places of unauthorized disposal of solid municipal waste is of national importance, and therefore, bodies of all levels of public authority should participate in its solution, the court emphasized. The use of controversial norms in law enforcement practice as a basis for imposing full responsibility for landfills on municipalities leads to a violation of the principle of local self-government independence, as well as a violation of the principle of unity of the public authority system, the court’s decision emphasizes.

The legislator should establish the distribution and sources of funding for the powers to clear illegal dumps. Prior to this, local authorities may be entrusted with such a duty, but in making such a decision, the courts must determine the amount of necessary funding from the federal or regional budget. If the municipalities, after the promulgation of this decision of the Constitutional Court, execute such court decisions and clear the landfills completely at their own expense, then they are entitled to reimbursement of expenses from the budget of the Russian Federation or the subject of the federation.

Olga Bazhenova, who represented the administration of Kodinsk in court, told Kommersant that the applicants were completely satisfied with the decision and were “very satisfied”: now the municipalities forced to deal with landfills will not be left without funding, she hopes.

In their complaint, it was not by chance that the applicants appealed to the principle of unity of public authority, Ms. Bazhenova adds: the new provisions of the Constitution provide for a mechanism for its implementation – in particular, Art. 133, which states that municipalities are entitled to compensation for additional expenses incurred in the exercise of public functions and powers. It was very important to make this principle work. The applicants now intend to seek a review of their case.

In addition, as stated in the written response of the Federal Property Management Agency, the department, together with the Ministry of Finance, is already working on the issue of legislative consolidation of the powers to eliminate unauthorized dumps for local self-government bodies.

Anastasia Kornya