Occupation interfered: an IDP from Kherson oblast waited almost two years for an official divorce

Publication date: October 27, 2023

A resident of Henichesk was supposed to attend a court hearing on divorce on February 26, 2022. The full-scale war disrupted all plans, forcing the woman to move to Vinnytsia oblast. Lawyers of the Khmilnyk-based NGO “Pravo” helped to solve the old legal problem in the new place.

Svitlana turned to the NGO “Pravo” with a request to help her with divorce. She said that she was an internally displaced person from Kherson oblast. On the eve of the full-scale invasion, she filed a lawsuit with the Henichesk District Court of Kherson Oblast. The trial was scheduled for February 26, 2022. Accordingly, this hearing was not to happen – the war broke out, the occupation of the Kherson oblast, and Svitlana left her hometown and found refuge in Khmilnyk.

The lawyer of the organization Lada Karaban studied the situation and explained to the woman that in accordance with Part 7 of Article 147 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges”, given the inability of courts to administer justice during martial law, the High Council of Justice, by its decision of 30.05.2023 No. 566/0/15-23, changed the territorial jurisdiction of court cases to the Kherson City Court of the Kherson oblast.

– The Kherson City Court of Kherson Oblast reported the absence of an electronic case file and any documents from the Нenichesk District Court of Kherson Oblast on Svitlana’s claim. According to the Unified State Register of Court Decisions, the trial on the divorce case never took place, the lawyer comments.

Lada Karaban noted that the provisions of the current procedural legislation do not provide for the possibility of resuming lost proceedings in which decisions have not yet been made. That is, pending proceedings cannot be reopened, so the plaintiff had to file a new claim with the court.

– Taking into account all the legal circumstances, we helped Svitlana to re-file her claim with the court. For today, the court has already issued a decision to dissolve the marriage, summarizes the lawyer.

The material was created with the support of the international charity platform GlobalGiving and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. The publication’s content is solely the responsibility of the Legal Development Network.

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