Genesis of the legislation and case law on the establishment of legal facts during war

Abstract

The article examines the current state of legislation and judicial practice of establishing legal facts in separate proceedings since the beginning of military operations on the territory of Ukraine in 2014.

The author focuses attention on the peculiarities of the judicial process and the problems that arise for the applicants when applying to the court with such statements.

Since the legislation requires the presentation of a clearly defined list of documents for state registration of birth or death, citizens who have only certificates and certificates not recognized by Ukraine, issued by the occupation authorities, can only receive from the civil status registration authorities a refusal to perform registration actions.

Since the beginning of military operations in the east of Ukraine, citizens who remained behind the front line, due to the cancellation of the access of civil status registration authorities and notaries to state registers, were deprived of the opportunity to receive properly executed documents of the Ukrainian model.

Establishing the fact of birth and death remained the only effective mechanism for applicants to issue relevant documents on the birth of children in Ukraine, to confirm their Ukrainian citizenship and to further exercise all their rights and freedoms as citizens of Ukraine. Relatives of the deceased can confirm the fact of the death of loved ones in the occupied territory and protect their rights as heirs only in court.

The article proposes changes to the legislation to eliminate disagreements and uncertainties that arose as a result of reforming the institution of establishing legal facts.

An analysis of judicial statistics for the past five years and current judicial practice of the Supreme Court is provided.

It was concluded that the legislator as a whole, albeit somewhat late, took into account the need to simplify the procedure for establishing the facts of birth and death of persons in wartime conditions, which greatly eased the lives of people who found themselves in difficult conditions due to military operations.

The results of the study can be useful for the practical work of courts and other participants in the legal process, who have a need to establish the facts of birth or death that occurred in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.