The lifting of the arrest on the lands of the Sochi national park raised questions about the violation of the rights of owners.

Thousands of arrested plots in the Sochi national park have had their arrests lifted and the criminal case closed, however, the owners of the plots continue to litigate for a review of their cases.

As reported by "Caucasian Knot", in July, due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, the court lifted the arrest on 4,430 plots of land, the restrictions on which were imposed in connection with the fraud case involving the lands of the Sochi national park.

On July 15, the court's ruling from June 22 on the closure of the criminal case and the lifting of the arrest on the lands of the national park came into legal force. "No one appealed this court decision," reported a representative of the civil cases office of the central district court of Sochi to a correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot". The ruling is not published in the case file on the court's website, however, it contains information that the criminal case against national park employees Galina Dolmatova and Andrey Semikolenov was terminated due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

A source in the Central District Court provided the correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot" with two documents signed by Judge Vadim Orekhov: a ruling from September 21, 2021, which imposed arrests on the plots as part of the criminal case regarding fraud with the lands of the national park, and a ruling from June 22, which lifted the arrests for the return of these plots to the national park.

For many owners, the judge's decision did not put an end to the long-standing struggle for the plots. "The criminal case is closed, but civil processes regarding the seizure of lands continue. The main question arises: who is responsible for the events whose consequences affected thousands of people?" asks Antonina, one of the owners who was unable to reclaim her plot.

Veronika, a mother of many children, recounted that initially her family received land in Khosta, built a house, but then the plot was seized. According to Veronika, her sister had 6 hundredths of land in Adler seized and returned to the state, which she bought for 12 million rubles to build a house for her family.

"If the investigation claimed for almost five years that the state suffered enormous damage and that thousands of plots of land were illegally removed from federal ownership, then the question arises: who exactly did this? Could it really be that only two elderly people from the national park could commit such a large-scale crime? If the criminal case is closed without a guilty verdict, it means the court did not recognize specific individuals as guilty of committing a crime," believes Evgeny, whose land dispute is currently under consideration in court after being returned from the Supreme Court.

"The court's decision does not automatically restore the violated rights of owners," believes Denis, a lawyer defending the rights of owners in courts. "If a decision has already been made regarding a specific plot in a civil lawsuit by the prosecutor's office to terminate the ownership rights of a citizen, then lifting the arrest only worsens the situation. Because the plot automatically passes into the ownership of the national park. That is why many residents of Sochi, despite the lifting of protective measures, continue to litigate for their land, as they have lost not only the land but also the money that no one intends to return to them, even though all transactions went through the Rosreestr," notes the lawyer.

Another feature is the lack of uniform judicial practice: some owners win cases after reviewing their cases, while others continue to lose.

"If the criminal case is closed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, society has the right to expect answers to several fundamental questions. Who made the decisions that allowed the formation of disputed plots of land? Which state bodies registered these rights without any legal responsibility? Why did the investigation take several years and end without a legally binding guilty verdict, and why was it necessary to prolong the time to bring it to the statute of limitations? Who will be responsible for the property losses of citizens if it is later proven in court that they were bona fide purchasers? How does the state intend to ensure a balance between the protection of federal property and the protection of citizens' constitutional right to property?" summarized the lawyer.

Roman, another lawyer representing the rights of landowners in court, believes that one of the key moments may be the comparison of rulings on the arrest of plots and the lifting of the arrest.

"If the lists of cadastral numbers completely match, it will mean that the protective measures were lifted precisely from those plots that were arrested five years ago. If the lists differ, it will require separate analysis. The reasons may vary: division of plots, their consolidation, change of cadastral numbers after boundary clarification, or exclusion of part of the objects from the original list. But any such discrepancies require transparent explanations, as it concerns the fate of the property of thousands of citizens," believes the lawyer. He is convinced that after analyzing the rulings, a new round of struggle for the rights of citizens will follow.