23.01.2026
On 22 January 2026, during the public part of its plenary session, the Grand Chamber deliberated, in written proceedings, the case brought by the Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of Article 58 of the Constitution of Ukraine (constitutionality) of Section II, “Final and Transitional Provisions”, of the Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to the Civil Code of Ukraine Regarding the Strengthening of the Protection of the Rights of a Bona Fide Purchaser” No. 4292-IX dated 12 March 2025 (hereinafter, “Law”).
During the plenary session, the judge-rapporteur in the case, Viktor Gorodovenko, informed that, in accordance with the contested provision of the Law, “the provisions of this Law shall have retroactive effect in terms of the conditions and procedure for compensation by a state authority or local self-government body to a bona fide acquirer of the value of immovable property, the valuation (expert monetary valuation of the land plot) of which was carried out in accordance with the procedure established by law, effective on the date of filing the statement of claim, in cases where the court of first instance has not issued a decision on the recovery of property from a bona fide purchaser on the date of entry into force of this Law, as well as in terms of the procedure for calculating and the expiry of the limitation period for the recovery or recognition of rights in relation to:
- real estate, the ownership rights to which were registered in the State Register of Real Rights to Real Estate prior to the date of entry into force of this Law;
- real estate for which, at the time of its transfer to the first acquirer, the law did not establish the need for state registration of the transaction or registration of ownership rights, and the date of its transfer to the first acquirer precedes the date of entry into force of this Law”.
The subject of the right to constitutional submission notes that ”giving retroactive effect to paragraph 2 of Section II, ’Final and Transitional Provisions," of the Law contradicts Article 58 of the Constitution of Ukraine, as it leads to a violation of the fundamental element of the principle of the rule of law - legal certainty. In addition, the retrospective application of the provisions of the Law may indicate a violation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to a fair trial) due to the interference of the legislator in the administration of justice by adopting normative legal acts that predetermine the outcome of a case pending before a court in which one of the parties is the state”.
Viktor Gorodovenko reported that in order to ensure a complete and objective deliberation of the case and deliver of a well-founded decision by the Court, requests were sent to the President of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, as well as the Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Odessa National Law University, the V. M. Koretsky Institute of State and Law of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. The court examined the materials of this case in the public part of the plenary session and proceeded to the in-camera part to deliver its decision.
The plenary session of the Grand Chamber was attended by a representative of the entity entitled to file a constitutional petition, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Supreme Court Rasim Babanly.
The plenary session is available for viewing on the official website of the Court under the heading “Video broadcasts of Constitutional Court sessions” – “Archive of video broadcasts of sessions”.
