Abstract
<jats:p>The article examines pressing issues in the legal regulation and judicial protection of the rights of small indigenous peoples of the North to land and traditional natural resource use, which are of fundamental importance to them. At the same time, the study aims to demonstrate the degree of correlation between changes in this sphere in the context of the ethnic amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 2020 and the rulings of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, which for the first time interpreted the legislation on these peoples in an expanded manner from the standpoint of preserving traditional culture. Within this framework, the article analyzes the state of regulation of these rights under federal laws in relation to international legal and constitutional requirements, as well as recent legal innovations aimed at strengthening them. In conjunction with the regulatory system, judicial practice is examined as a means of clarifying and filling gaps in legislation concerning the rights of northern peoples, particularly regarding the registration of individuals belonging to these groups and their exercise of rights to land use, traditional hunting, and fishing. The article notes some progress in these areas, but vital issues for these ethnic communities remain without adequate legal resolution, in particular, the gratuitous use of land and other natural resources, priority access to such lands and resources, the participation of representatives of northern peoples in decision-making affecting their interests, and the optimization of interaction with subsoil users. The authors suggest that this situation is partly due to the continued adherence of ordinary courts to a formalistic approach in adjudicating cases, as well as their disregard for the special constitutional and legal status of Russia’s small indigenous peoples. Higher judicial instances have also failed to demonstrate proactive engagement with these issues, as evidenced by the absence of judicial practice reviews and, at times, a clear reluctance to identify the constitutional and legal meaning of specific guarantees enshrined for northern peoples. T.G.Morshchakova, to whose anniversary this article is dedicated, has drawn attention to these problems of judicial formalism. This article serves, in a sense, as a confirmation of the formalism in judicial practice, illustrated through the interpretation of the rights of northern peoples to land and traditional natural resource use.</jats:p>