Prospects of Real Rights: Public Property vs. Unified Property Right

Abstract

In the domestic science, the notion of public property is gaining increasing popularity. It is proposedto develop in the normative acts the idea of a variety of forms of ownership and to recognize the public form of ownership as a special kind of relationship that needs special legal regulation.However, many specialists stand on opposite positions. They affirm in their studies the ideal of aunified property right with a single content for all owners. Such views are widespread among civillaw experts. They are making efforts to improve civil legislation in a way that excludes not only thecategory of public property, but also the division of ownership into some form. This confrontation isnot a normal phenomenon. It shows that there is no reliable theoretical basis for codifying not onlyproperty law, but also all Russian legislation. The choice should not be purely sectoral, it is necessaryto find a common solution for Russian law. Since the separation of property into forms is enshrinedin legislation, for many decades it has received a scientific justification, and today many are taken forgranted, and the article focuses on alternative views. The article attempts to assess the successionof supporters of the unified property right in defending their ideas, the timeliness and practical valueof their proposals. The author uses historical, comparative-legal methods of research: the divisionof property into forms in due time has affected many institutions of domestic law, and therefore therejection of this division should be combined with the rejection of other concepts, constructions,and solutions that have become customary. The methodological basis of the study was a systemanalysis: the idea of a unified property right was critically evaluated from the point of view of itscorrespondence to another important concept, legal personality. It is concluded that the weak pointof the position of the supporters of the unified property right is the discrepancy between their viewson property and legal personality, their lenient attitude towards the three-member classification ofsubjects in civil law. A unified property right will help to raise the codification of property legislation toa qualitatively new level. But first of all the idea of a single legal personality must be established in ourlaw. The first step in this direction will be the return of the Russian Federation, constituent entities ofthe Russian Federation and municipal entities to the system of legal entities.