17 July, 2024
On 17 July 2024, at the public part of the plenary session, the First Senate proceeded with the deliberation of the case upon constitutional complaint of Volodymyr Yakimenko in the form of written proceedings.
During the plenary session, the judge-rapporteur in the case, Olha Sovhyria, reported that the subject of the right to a constitutional complaint had filed a petition with the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to verify the compliance of Article 423.1 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine (hereinafter, “the Code”) with the Constitution of Ukraine.
According to Article 423.1 of the Code, “a court decision, resolution or ruling that has completed the consideration of a case and entered into force may be reviewed based on newly discovered or exceptional circumstances”.
According to the judge-rapporteur, on 22 November 2023, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine delivered Decision No. 10-r(II)/2023 (case on guaranteeing the right to judicial protection in minor disputes), which declared unconstitutional Articles 19.6.1, 19.6.5 of the Code.
From the content of the constitutional complaint and the materials attached to it, it is clear that after this decision was delivered, in December 2023, Volodymyr Yakimenko applied to the Supreme Court with a petition to review the decision of the Supreme Court of 13 February 2023 in exceptional circumstances on the basis of Article 423.3.1 of the Code, namely: "the unconstitutionality (constitutionality) of a law, other legal act or their separate provision, established by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, applied (not applied) by the court in resolving the case, if the court decision has not yet been executed”.
The Supreme Court returned Volodymyr Yakimenko's petition, stating that “the ruling of the Supreme Court of 13 February 2023 to refuse to initiate constitutional proceedings is not a decision that concludes the case and is adopted as a result of the resolution of the dispute on the merits, therefore such a ruling cannot be subject to review in exceptional circumstances in accordance with Article 423.1 of the Code of Civil Procedure of Ukraine”.
The petitioner believes that the disputed provision of the Code makes it impossible to review the decision to refuse to initiate cassation proceedings and to re-decide by the Supreme Court the issue of initiating such proceedings without applying the provision previously declared unconstitutional. As a result, the petitioner emphasises, he is deprived of the right to effectively protect and restore the rights violated by the application of the provision declared unconstitutional in his case.
The judge-rapporteur also reported that the First Senate was deliberating on the constitutional complaint of Yevstifeiev Mykyta , in which the same issue was the subject of constitutional rewiev.
In this case, the Court proceeded to the in-camera part of the plenary session to deliver a decision.
The public part of the plenary session is available on the official website of the Court at the following link:
https://ccu.gov.ua/kategoriya/2024
