If the officials' plans come true, the visually impaired pensioner and labor veteran Henrietta Gorbachyova will lose almost all of her garden and fruit trees. The old woman will have to demolish the outbuildings, and the city sewerage line laid under her windows, in violation of sanitary standards, will run about a meter from the windows of her apartment building.
“The administration of the Makaryevsky district filed a lawsuit against me so that I would give part of my land plot for an easement, which they want to make in the middle of my land plot 6 meters wide and 40 meters long. They demand to demolish my buildings. They also demand that I repair and build a sewerage line for the district administration for the owners of a neighboring apartment building. I purchased the land plot without restrictions and encumbrances. Please help me protect my rights. I am an old and sick person. Since May, I have been constantly in hospitals: both in the district and in the regional and 1 city. I can hardly hear and see almost nothing, they had an operation. I hope for your help”, - the pensioner turned to the editorial office of Novye Izvestia.
Many years ago, a pensioner Gorbachyova bought an old wooden house with a land plot on Bolshaya Sovetskaya Street in the town of Makaryev. When she bought the house and land, no restrictions or encumbrances were imposed on their use. Together with her daughter and son-in-law, Henrietta Nikolayevna developed a vegetable garden, brought from the nursery and planted varietal apple, plum and pear trees on the site. However, she, obviously, will no longer have to use the crop.
In September 2020, Gorbachyova received a letter from the administration of the Makaryevsky municipal district, which required the establishment of an easement on her land. The City Hall's proposed easement line ran through part of the pensioner's tiny house, her only home. The pensioner did not agree with the requirement to impose an easement. And then the officials sued her.
"Pay, sign ..."
Despite all objections, on January 28, 2021, the Makaryevsky District Court partially satisfied the requirements of the officials and established an indefinite easement with an area of 187 sq. m. on the site of Gorbachyova "for the operation and maintenance of the sewerage line passing through her private land plot." The woman was obliged to free the territory of the easement from the erected economic structures. In addition, the old woman was obliged at her own expense "by concluding an agreement with a specialized organization" to restore at her own expense the destroyed sewer wells and pipes that ran through this territory in Soviet times. The aim of the litigation by the authorities was to connect to the sewerage network of apartment building No. 4, located on Oktyabrskaya Street.
As the daughter of the pensioner Marina Medvedeva said, there was a sewage system on the territory of her mother's old house. It was a cesspool built in 1956. But a few years ago, the Makaryevsk authorities announced that the private cesspool of pensioner Gorbachyova was “municipal sewer networks,” and tried to forcefully connect an apartment building built nearby to it.
Judgment "to ours and ours"
Considering the case of the controversial cesspool, the Makaryevsky judge Andrei Smirnov did not take the challenge, although there was a conflict of interests: the judge turned out to be a relative of the plaintiff's representative, the head of the legal department of the Makaryevsky district administration, Svetlana Smirnova. Although Russian legislation contains an explicit prohibition on the consideration of cases by a judge, when one of the parties is related or related to him, the judge has not been challenged.
The administration of the Makaryevsky district confirmed the participation of lawyer Svetlana Smirnova in court as a representative of the plaintiff in the process chaired by Judge Andrei Smirnov. Without refuting the existence of properties between them, the regional authorities did not see any violations of the law in the scandalous situation.
Subsequently, an examination of the qualification collegium of judges established that the judge, who was married to the sister of the spouse of the plaintiff's representative, did not really have the right to consider the case and was obliged to withdraw. However, the decision made by the court in favor of the Makaryev officials was not canceled.
On the eve of International Women's Day, a pensioner Gorbachyova filed an appeal against the regional court's decision to the regional court, indicating that no one handed over any sewer networks to her, and was not engaged in service. The officials have the technical ability to run the sewage system nearby, bypassing its land plot, but they stubbornly do not want to consider this option - obviously, hoping to save several meters of pipe on this.
Are people the new oil?
“In my opinion, the demands of the district administration are clearly excessive”, - lawyer Andrey Danchenko said in an interview with Novye Izvestia. - They may well resolve the issue of laying through common land, bypassing the pensioner's house. Why torture grandma when there is an absolutely normal and logical alternative? The pensioner received the land legally along with the house, through a sale and purchase agreement. And now she is forced to build a sewage system for unknown persons at her own expense? It's just absurd! The laying of urban sewerage networks is the responsibility of the municipality. The law does not envisage shifting this responsibility of the authorities onto private individuals. I believe that in this situation the court clearly went too far".
The administration of the Makaryevsky district, where the editorial board of Novye Izvestia asked for a comment, said:
“On the territory of the land plot of citizen Gorbachyova there are public sewer networks. In accordance with the requirements of the legislation, a citizen of Gorbachyova must provide access to the sewage system for carrying out the necessary work on their repair and maintenance, but this is hindered by a long period of time. As a result, the sewerage system has not yet been installed to the apartment building located next to Gorbachyova's site. Three families with minor children are forced to rent another apartment for 6 years. Gorbachyova does not agree to an agreement with the district administration. Moreover, on the site, pipes in the inspection well were blocked and a number of public utility facilities were destroyed, an outbuilding was erected on the site of the sewer hatch. In order to protect the interests of citizens by legal procedure, this issue was sent for consideration to the courts. The Makaryevsky district court established an easement on a part of the land plot to ensure the conduct of economic work there and ordered the owner of the plot to restore the destroyed sewer wells”, - Yuri Metelkin, head of the Makaryevsky municipal district, said in response to a request from the editorial board.
In the near future, an appeal on the restoration of the old city sewer networks in Makaryev at the expense of a half-blind pensioner will be considered by the regional court.