DOOR

The procedure for registering and acquiring ownership rights over state forests, which should have been a simple transfer of social ownership to state ownership, has proven complex and lengthy in its implementation. The reasons for this lie in inherited unresolved ownership rights, legal gaps, and the long-standing neglect of registering ownership during the period of social ownership.

Although case law demonstrates consistency and clearly shows courts’ decisions on the acquisition of state ownership rights over forests and forest land, initiating individual corrective procedures and civil litigation to clarify ownership issues prolongs court proceedings and incurs costs. Therefore, the question arises whether long-unresolved state ownership rights can be resolved in a faster, more efficient, and economically acceptable manner, such as by initiating individual land registry transfer procedures for one or more parcels.

This procedure allows for the removal of irrelevant and outdated ownerships, as well as the registration of ownership rights based on public and private documents for which there are grounds under the law, but also by conducting other possible evidentiary procedures according to the rules of non-civil litigation proceedings, which would significantly accelerate the resolution of ownerships over forests, with substantially lower procedural costs.

Therefore, in future amendments to the Forest Act, the legislator should more precisely regulate when and who should initiate the procedure and cover the costs of individual registry transfer procedures of large forest complexes with the aim of faster, more efficient, and more cost effective resolution of the state’s ownership over forests and forest land.

With the latest amendments to the law, the legislator has transferred the obligation to pay the costs of civil proceedings and non-civil litigation proceedings to the person managing the forests owned by the Republic of Croatia, thus, in the majority of cases, to Croatian Forests.

However, this normative solution, besides being difficult to implement in practice, contradicts the existing articles of the Civil Procedure Act because civil and non-civil litigation proceedings can obligate only the parties to those proceedings to advance and pay procedural costs, which the company Hrvatske šume (Croatian Forests) is not.

Furthermore, the parties entitled to claim or compensate others for litigation costs, under the principle of causality, are the parties to the civil procedings and interveners having the status of necessary co-litigants.

In proceedings initiated by the Republic of Croatia, rather than by the company Hrvatske šume (Croatian Forests), only the state may be obliged to pay the procedural costs. Therefore, courts continue to obligate the state—as a party—to advance and pay the costs.

What the legislator should do in subsequent amendments to the Forest Act, to enable the implementation of this provision, is to regulate by law the status of legal entities that manage forests in such proceedings, i.e., grant them the status of an intervener with the position of a necessary co-litigant.

Only such an intervener, whose legal position is affected by the judgment and who holds the status of a necessary co-litigant, may be ordered by the courts to advance and pay the costs of proceedings initiated by the state for the purpose of resolving ownership rights.

In conclusion, the resolution of the state’s ownership issues over forests and forest land requires close coordination and cooperation between the State Attorney’s Office and the company Hrvatske šume (Croatian Forests), along with legal precision, patience, and persistence in gathering evidence for ownership claims outside the land registry and continuous possession of forests. Through consistent effort, throught a combination of registration, individual rectification procedures, and civil procedures, case law has contributed to legal certainty and the protection of state forests.

The long-lasting nature of the entire process further emphasizes the significance and value of the committment and involvement of all participants, especially the employees of the company Hrvatske šume (Croatian Forests), and the Forest Management Units of Delnice and Senj, whose employees have demonstrated dedication and selfless work to prove how deeply “foresters love their forests,” applying on a daily basis the principle of sustainability, and ensuring the long-term care and protection of forests. Recognition should be given to those—from branch managers, legal services, surveyors, and forest rangers to foresters—who are dedicated to the preservation, care and protection of forest.