Bill on Gardening: Expediency and Subject of Regulation

Abstract

The paper features coming alterations in the Russian legislation regulating legal relations in gardening, vegetable gardening and cottage gardening. The paper examines the approaches to determining the subject matter of legal regulation in the bill of the federal law On Gardening, Vegetable Gardening and Cottage Gardening aiming to facilitate legal relations in gardening, vegetable gardening and cottage being developed by the Russian Government under the instruction of the President of April 14 2014 N Pr-840. The legal comparison of the provisions of the federal legislation and the applicable Federal Law of April 15 1998 no 66-FZ On Gardening and Cottage noncommercial Associations of Citizens shows that despite the title of the applicable law, its norms are not limited to regulating legal status of Gardening and Cottage noncommercial Associations of citizens as legal persons. The author notes that the law contains the provisions relevant to all gardeners and cottage owners irrespective of their membership in noncommercial partnerships, consumer cooperatives and noncommercial partnerships. Due to this, conclusions are made on the rationale of the choice of approaches to the subject matter of regulation as to the new federal law, i.e. whether the law answers the question if the new federal law should be a law on legal persons (noncommercial corporate organizations established by citizens for gardening or cottage farming) or the law on gardening and cottage gardening as a type of activity and leisure for citizens. The author stresses the necessity to define the concepts gardening, vegetable gardening and cottage gardening due to their fundamental nature for the new federal law, presented own approaches to defining them and justified the unique nature of gardening, vegetable gardening and cottage gardening as types of land-use.