32 ARTICLE KUTAFIN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW RIGHT TO PRIVATE PROPERTY: CONSTITUTIONAL EVOLUTION By Veniamin Chirkin (Russia) Author LLD, Saint Petersburg State University, 1964 Professor, Chief researcher at the Institute of State and Law, Russian Academy of Sciences Chief researcher at the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation Honored Worker of Science of the Russian Federation and Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation Email: vechirkin@yandex.ru Abstract Nowadays the attitude to private property in people’s mind and its constitutional regulation has signifi cantly changed. <...> The exception is Article 17 of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 that is considered as a part of nonconsolidated Constitution of France (‘le bloc de constitutionnalitй’). <...> There are new approaches in regulating the institution of private property institution in constitutional law; they are referred to the economic and social justice, as well as to the social function of private property. <...> The legitimacy of its nationalization in the interests of society and the state is recognized, but some restrictions are imposed. <...> Each form of property has its own legal regulation in the constitution. <...> Even in those states where totalitarian regime still takes place the attitude to private property has been changed as well. <...> On the contrary, constitutions include provisions of its existence and high use. www.kulawr.ru Volume 2 May 2015 Issue 1(3) Veniamin Chirkin Right to Private Property: Constitutional Evolution 33 This imperative approach to the regulation of property rights in constitutional law is signifi cantly different from the legal regulation of the ownership institution in civil law. <...> The article covers the evolution of the legal status of private property and its legal regulation under modern conditions; the original absolution of private property in the interests of social layers, winning bourgeois revolutions in XVII−XVIII centuries considering the forms of subsequent restrictions on this right. <...> Keywords Property, private property, restrictions on private property, state ownership, public property, social function of private property, social state TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction . 33 II. <...> Features of Civil Law and Constitutional Legal Approach to the Right to Private Property . 35 III. <...> Constitutional Law <...>