Recently the Lithuanian Constitutional Court carried several resolutions on legal acts regulating the legal status of land, limitations and prohibitions of land ownership, usage rights, as well as economic and other activities related to land. In its resolution dated March 14, 2006, the Constitutional Court dealt with the problem of constitutionality of provisions of the Regulation of Construction on Private Land, which regulates construction on a forestland. The court ruled that, according to the Regulation of Construction on Private Land, construction on forestland is allowed when such buildings are needed for forest-related economic activities. It was stated that this provision competes with a legal regulation determined by the Law on Land of the Republic of Lithuania and by the Law on Forests of the Republic of Lithuania, according to which areas occupied with wood storehouses and other forest-related facilities are considered as forest land.
Thus the Constitutional Court declared as unconstitutional the part of the provision regarding construction of buildings of the Regulation of Construction on Private Land, which allows the construction of other buildings that are not wood storehouses or other forest-related facilities.
According to the Forests Department of the Ministry of Environment, the possibility to build in forestland is probably limited even further by prohibiting construction of any buildings and facilities on forestland until a site needed for construction is separated and its purpose is changed.
In the resolution dated March 30, 2006 the Constitutional Court, having evaluated land as a limited resource necessary to preserve valuable features of agricultural land, acknowledged the right of legislators to determine maximum sizes of obtainable agricultural land.
However, the Constitutional Court emphasized that, according to the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, a legal regulation is inappropriate when maximum sizes of obtainable agricultural land for various subjects are not set according to constitutional criteria and thus allowing for violations of constitutional rights of some subjects to occur.
On these grounds the court stated that the part of the Provisional Law on Obtaining Agricultural Land, which determines 300 hectares and not 2000 hectares (as for legal persons) as the maximum size of obtainable agricultural land for natural persons, contradicts the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania.
After these resolutions of the Constitutional Court, even without amending the Provisional Law on Obtaining Agricultural Land of the Republic of Lithuania, natural persons have a right to obtain as much agricultural land as legal persons 's i.e., the total area of agricultural land owned by one person shall not exceed 2,000 hectares. In this way, assumptions to violate constitutional principal of equality of persons, to violate fair competition in the agricultural area and to limit freedom of economic activities were abolished.
Meanwhile, based on the resolution of Constitutional Court dated March 14, 2006 rights of forest owners were limited in a way that only wood storehouses and other forest-related facilities can be built on forestland. Building permits for construction of other buildings (even forest-related) on forestland can be issued only after an appropriate part of a site is separated and its purpose is changed.
Agne Tuzovaite is a lawyer for Jurevicius, Balciunas & Bartkus, Professional Law Partnership, a member of Baltic Legal Solutions, a pan-Baltic integrated legal network of law firms including Teder Glikman & Partnerid in Estonia and Kronbergs & Cukste in Latvia, dedicated to providing a quality 'one-stop shop' approach to clients' needs in the Baltics.
