After 9 years of occupation: a resettled woman from Luhansk region was able to solve “outdated” legal issues

Publication date: April 5, 2023

Olesia*, a 39-year-old displaced woman, applied to NGO “Triangle” (Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast) at the end of February this year. She said that she was able to leave the territory of the Luhansk oblast, temporarily occupied since 2014, only in January 2023. Therefore, the woman had a whole package of questions for the lawyers of the Kolomyia organization, which needed an immediate solution…

Inna Kolesnyk – the lawyer of the NGO “Triangle” (Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast).

One of these issues was a debt write-off by one of the Ukrainian banks for non-payment on a credit card. Since Olesia did not have access to Ukrainian banks or hryvnias at all for about 9 years, she could not pay the debt, and now she was forced to ask the bank to cancel the debt. The woman needed an answer to the question of whether such a write-off is provided for by law, and if so, what should be done for it.

The lawyer of the organization, Inna Kolesnyk, explained to Olesia the algorithm of applying to the bank and the sequence of actions.
The lawyer also helped with another issue – getting a foreign passport.

• One of the documents that must be submitted to the migration service for the production of a passport is a marriage certificate that confirms the change of surname. However, the client does not have the original certificate. She tried to independently apply for the production of a duplicate to the Department of State Registration of Civil Status Acts in Kolomyia, but she was refused because there is no corresponding entry in the state register, – explains Inna Kolesnyk.

Prior to this, the woman was also helped by a lawyer from the “Caritas” organization to prepare a statement of claim to the court for the court to establish the fact of marriage. However, the court refused to open the proceedings, as it believed that the marriage certificate documents existed, and the fact did not need to be certified. Inna Kolesnyk recommended Olesia apply for an extract from the State Register of Civil Status Acts of Citizens in accordance with the recommendations of the Ministry of Justice.
In such cases, the legislation of Ukraine, in particular, the Law of Ukraine “On State Registration of Civil Status Acts” No. 2398-VI and “Rules for Amendments to Civil Status Act Records, Their Renewal and Cancellation” provides for the renewal of act records of civil status.

Thus, thanks to the help of the Triangle lawyer, the woman was able to successfully resolve two “outdated” important issues.

*Name has been changed for ethical reasons.

The material was created within the framework of the “Regional Coordinators” Initiative. The initiative is launched with the support of the international charity platform GlobalGiving and the Legal Empowerment Fund (Fund for Global Human Rights program) and the Legal Development Network.

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