Applying to the court via the official e-mail address of the court with a procedural document signed by the Qualified Electronic Signature is a proper way to apply to the court - Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court

The law allows an individual to file appeals in electronic form, as well as in paper form, through the Electronic Court and Electronic Cabinet subsystems, with the mandatory certification of the appeal with a qualified electronic signature (QES) of the party to the case or using an official e-mail address with the certification of the document by the QES.

An individual's application to the court via the court's official e-mail address with a procedural document signed by the QES is a proper and legitimate way of applying to the court, which is equivalent to applying through the office or by traditional means of postal communication and should be qualified as a direct application to the court.

The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court reached these conclusions, pointing out that they do not apply to lawyers, notaries, private enforcement officers, forensic experts, state and local governments, business entities of the state and municipal sectors of the economy, which register their official e-mail addresses in the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunication System on a mandatory basis.

In the case at hand, the applicant sent an appeal signed by her representative's QES to the court's e-mail. However, the court of appeal returned the complaint, pointing out that the signature of the person who filed it was missing.

The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court overturned this decision and referred the case back to the court of appeal for further consideration, stating that a distinction should be made between the method of applying to the court and the requirements to be met by the procedural document.

If a document contains an electronic signature ensuring the identification of a person (other than lawyers and other persons specified in clause 10 of the Regulation on the procedure for the functioning of certain subsystems (modules) of the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunication System), but this signature is applied without using the UJITS subsystems and the procedural document is sent to the official e-mail address of the court, there is no reason to claim that such an electronic document is unsigned.

The opposite approach negates the provisions on the legal validity of an electronic document and the presumption that a QES is equivalent to a handwritten signature, and contradicts part 1, Article 8 of the Law of Ukraine "On Electronic Documents and Electronic Document Management" and Article 18 of the Law of Ukraine "On Electronic Trust Services".

In this case, however, the applicant did not lodge an appeal with the court in person, but through a lawyer, who can lodge an appeal either in writing or electronically using the Electronic Court Service.

At the same time, the applicant's lawyer explained the impossibility of lodging an appeal through the Electronic Court subsystem by the lack of technical capacity of this service to accept procedural documents for "appeal against a court decision".

The court of appeal did not consider these circumstances and came to the premature conclusion that the appeal should be returned.

The Resolution of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court of 13 September 2023 in case No. 204/2321/22 (proceedings No. 14-48цс22) - https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/113701392.

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