Monograph by Dr. Kamil Rudol titled The legal status of land communities in Poland, created on the basis of a doctoral thesis defended at our Institute under the supervision of prof. Ph.D. Alina Jurcewicz, was published by the INP PAN Publishing House.
“The land communities” is a special type of agricultural law institution, similar in structure to fractional co-ownership, that derives directly from the mediaeval institution of divided property by substance (dominium divisum). Its essence is the entitlement to a share in the land of the community, which consists in the use of real estate counted as part of it, vested in persons residing in or owning an agricultural holding in the area where the community is located.
The genesis of commons dates back to the formation of socioeconomic relations during the Middle Ages, but the momentous significance of their legal position and function became apparent only after the rebirth of Polish statehood in 1918. The complex conditions of unifying the law in the Polish lands previously subject to the partitioning powers led to different attitudes of the legislature towards commons in various parts of the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939), which further complicated the definition of their legal status. In the post-war period, which was characterised by a programmatic collectivist approach to agricultural production and a reluctance to strengthen agricultural property, the task was undertaken to regulate issues whose origins and character were strongly rooted in the institutions of private law. The result of these efforts was the current law of June 29, 1963 on the management of common lands, maintaining the existence of “land communities” as a form of simple rural cooperation and transforming farmers into collective forms of agricultural production.
This monograph comprises a comprehensive overview of the essence of “land communities” in the light of the letter of the law, the views of doctrine and jurisprudence and the policy of implementing the rights of the beneficiaries of the regulations under study. The main goal of the work (the basic research task) was to establish the legal status of commons and to determine their legal position in the Polish doctrine. In particular, the research sought to 1) identify the subjects of the property rights of real estate included in commons, 2) clarify the legal nature of the powers comprising the use of commons’ real estate by those entitled to participate in the community and 3) characterise the legal bond linking those entitled to participate in the land communities and the organisation established to manage and develop the community.
An additional goal of the monograph was to embed its discussion in the social (legal and economic) realities of modern times by examining the relationship between the legal regulation of commons and their role for agriculture, which could also be framed as a social/ technical issue of legislation with an element of state policy. In this regard, the research hypothesis was formed: common lands may perform important pro-environmental, socioeconomic and cultural functions for modern agriculture in the current legislative state. As a basis for the considerations, it was assumed that common lands were subjected to various legal regulations, primarily resulting from the constant re-evaluation of the goals set for communities, depending on the level of industrialisation of the country, the degree of wealth in society or the various professions and their proportions.
Author: dr Kamil Rudol
Rewievers: dr hab. Katarzyna Leśkiewicz, prof. UAM, dr hab. Przemysław Litwiniuk
ISBN: 978-83-66300-80-4 (książka)
e-ISBN: 978-83-66300-81-1 (ebook)
DOI:10.5281/zenodo.8232305
Pages: 288
Monograph by Dr. Kamil Rudol is available in:e-Bibliotece Prawniczej w modelu Open Access.
We encourage you to read this interesting book.