This article demonstrates the role of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which laid down the fundamental principles, the system of constitutional coordinates on legality in land relations, the parity of private and public interests. A comparative legal analysis of the norms of constitutional and land legislation has been carried out and the author’s position on the current state, main achievements, value and significance of the Foundation Law has been expressed. Examples of positive and negative development of land legislation, its inconsistency, cumbersome, unacceptable trend of changes are considered. The author critically evaluated ideas for reforming the industry, including the proposal to abolish the principle of dividing lands into categories. A special place is given to the analysis of problems in the field of regulation of the turnover of agricultural lands, which have recently been faced by the producers of goods. A special attention is paid to the consideration of the conditions of legality, the validity of the legal acts adopted by the state subjects of the Russian Federation containing the norms of land law. In the context of optimization, the article stresses the need to eliminate the gap between the ideals established by the Constitution and the reality. To enhance the effectiveness of constitutional norms, the most important, according to the author, is to strengthen the legal mechanism for their application. The author has formulated proposals for the improvement of land legislation.