The lawyer called ways to challenge the recognition of the grave as ownerless in court.

The recognition of a burial site as abandoned is an administrative decision of a local government body or an authorized specialized organization and may be challenged in court. Lawyer Mark Varshaver announced this in an interview with Izvestia on March 31.

According to him, the legislation does not have a single federal procedure for recognizing a burial site as abandoned, so such disputes are considered according to the general rules. Usually we are talking about administrative proceedings, and if there is a dispute about the law or the need to establish legal facts, we are talking about civil proceedings. The application is submitted to the district court at the location of the cemetery.

"The courts proceed from the existence of a person responsible for burial, who has certain rights in relation to the place of burial. At the same time, its legal status at the federal level is not regulated: the scope of rights and the procedure for their transfer are fixed mainly in regional and municipal acts, as well as in technical standards, including GOST 32609-2014," the lawyer noted.

Mark Varshaver emphasized that in judicial practice, the key importance is not so much the appearance of the burial, but rather the observance of the procedure for recognizing it as abandoned.

The grounds for contesting are most often violations of the inspection procedure (including the lack of notification of relatives and a proper inspection act), confirmation of kinship and willingness to take care of the grave, premature use of the site before the expiration of the sanitary period, as well as the presence of cultural and historical value of the burial or violation of the rights of the person responsible for the family place.

As a rule, the procedure for recognizing a burial as abandoned includes an inventory of the cemetery, an inspection of the sites by the commission, recording the condition of the graves, checking archival data, and attempts to identify relatives or a responsible person. Only if there is no response to notifications, an appropriate decision is made.

Read more in the Izvestia article: When a grave becomes ownerless: terms, rules, exhumation, and rights of relatives

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.