Makovetskyi A. Property rights of territorial communities under the legislation of Ukraine

The dissertation is the first special comprehensive research into the territorial communities’ property rights under the legislation of Ukraine in domestic civil law. The dissertation has defined the research methodology and provides a review of the literature on the dissertation research topic. The emerence and development of legislation on the territorial communities’ property rights under the Ukraine’s law has been considered; the characteristics of legal relations arising from territorial communities’ property relations have been additionally provided. Further, a classification of historical evolution of Ukraine’s legislation on the regulatory and legal framework for relations in the field of territorial communities’ property rights has been propounded: 1) I period - 1991-1997: the formation of Ukraine as an independent, sovereign state. The first steps were taken towards the legislative definition of the system and guarantees of local self-government in Ukraine; the definition of "territorial community" was fixed; 2) II period - 1997-2003 - establishment and renewal of the civil legislation of Ukraine; 3) III period - 2003-2004 - further development of Ukrainian legislation prior to the "Orange" revolution; 4) IV period - 2004-2010 - active development of Ukrainian legislation, taking into account the European integration direction of the Ukrainian state’s movement towards association with the EU; 5) V period - 2010-2013 - development and renewal of Ukrainian legislation on the way to European integration before the beginning of the “revolution of dignity"; 6) VI period - 2014 - 2019 - the formation of Ukrainian legislation in the period following the “revolution of dignity", the annexation of the AR of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the creation of the self-proclaimed L/DPR in the east of Ukraine and the beginning of the "Anti-terrorist operation" with the aim of liberating the annexed territories; 7) Period VII – 2019-2022 – development of Ukrainian legislation during the period of restrictions related to quarantine measures in connection with the spread of the acute respiratory disease - coronavirus "SARS-CoV-2" (COVID-19), before the beginning of the Russian Federation’s full-scale military invasion of the territory of Ukraine and the introduction of the legal regime of martial law throughout the territory of Ukraine; 8) VIII period - 2022 - present time - development of Ukrainian legislation under the conditions of the martial law legal regime (due to the full-scale Russian Federation’s military invasion of the Ukraine’s territory), ongoing hostilities and the temporary occupation of certain territories of Ukraine. The dissertation defines the concept and legal nature of territorial communities’ property rights pursuent to the legislation of Ukraine and provides their general characteristics. It has been proposed to view the property of territorial communities as a system of relations concerning the objects (movable and immovable) that are owned by the territorial communities in question, which constitute the local self-government’s material basis. It was further concluded that within given system, the subjects of territorial communities' property rights should be distinguished as those being the active party to the relationship dealing with the territorial communities’s property, and the objects of territorial community's property being the passive side of the relationship regarding the property at issue. The distinction was drawn between the definition of "common property of territorial communities" (oblast, district), which is managed by regional and/or district councils under the first part of Article 142 of the Constitution of Ukraine, and "united objects of territorial communities’ communal property" (villages, towns, cities) owned on contractual basis under the right of joint ownership for the purpose of implementing joint projects and/or, for the purpose of joint financial maintenance of communal enterprises (organizations and institutions) pursuent to the second part of Article 142 of the Constitution of Ukraine,. It was found necessary to supplement the provisions of certain articles of the Civil Code of Ukraine with the following terminological definitions: the legal regime of "joint", "joint common" and "joint partial" property of territorial communities; the concept of "management of territorial communities’ property rights objects", including management of objects that are jointly owned by territorial communities; the legal regime of the property in the ownership of communal enterprises (institutions, organizations).The dissertation describes the peculiarities of the emergence, implementation and termination of the territorial communities’ property rights under the legislation of Ukraine including under martial law.