Cases on establishing the fact of living in the same family with a deceased serviceman shall be considered in the procedure of civil judicial proceedings – SC GC

Cases on the establishment of facts, on which the emergence, change or termination of the subjective rights of citizens depends, belong to the jurisdiction of the civil court. Current legislation does not provide for any other judicial procedure for confirming a fact that has legal significance, except for consideration of relevant cases according to the rules of civil judicial procedure.

Cases on establishing the fact of living in the same family without marriage to a deceased serviceman shall be the subject to consideration in the procedure of civil judicial proceedings, regardless of the purpose of the appeal to the court (in particular, confirmation of social status for the appointment and payment of a one-time monetary assistance to the family of the serviceman) and whether the applicant has certain civil rights and duties or the occurrence of public legal disputes with subjects of authority.

This has been pointed out by the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court.

In the case under consideration, the plaintiff applied to the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine to receive a one-time monetary assistance as a family member of a deceased serviceman. However, the Ministry of Defence commission refused to appoint the assistance for her due to the lack of evidence to confirm that the plaintiff had the status of a family member of the fallen serviceman – the plaintiff had not submitted a judgment establishing the fact that they had lived in the same family without marriage registration.

The district administrative court refused to satisfy the plaintiff's demands to cancel the commission's decision, because she had not confirmed the fact of living together with the deceased person in the same family, therefore she was not covered by Article 16-1 of the Law of Ukraine "On social and legal protection of military personnel and their family members". The appeal court overturned this judgment and satisfied the claim.

The SC Grand Chamber concluded that in view of the lack of documents provided for the payment of one-time monetary assistance, the Ministry of Defence commission, by refusing to appoint the specified assistance for the plaintiff, had acted within its powers and in accordance with the requirements of the law.

At the same time, during the consideration of this case, the question to be resolved was whether it is possible to establish the fact of living in the same family without marriage for the purpose of applying to the relevant authorities for the appointment of a one-time monetary assistance within the scope of the consideration of the case in the procedure of administrative proceedings and, taking into account the establishment of the presence or absence of this fact, to provide an assessment of the decision of the authority subject, which has been adopted before the establishment of such a fact by the court.

The SC Grand Chamber drew attention to the fact that there are two procedures for establishing facts of legal significance: extrajudicial and judicial.

In the event of an appeal to the court against the refusal of the relevant body to establish a legal fact, which is subject to being established out of court, such a dispute shall be considered in the procedure of administrative proceedings. Cases on the establishment of legal facts in judicial procedure shall be decided by courts of civil jurisdiction according to the rules of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC) of Ukraine. In particular, according to Clause 5, Part 1 of Article 315 of the CPC of Ukraine, the court shall consider cases on establishing the fact of living in the same family of a man and a woman without marriage.

Therefore, the court that considers cases on the establishment of a fact that has legal significance, in particular the fact that a man and a woman live in the same family without marriage, shall be represented by a court of civil jurisdiction in accordance with Art. 19 of the CPC of Ukraine and Clause 5, Part 1 of Article 315 of the CPC of Ukraine.

At the same time, in one proceeding, demands on establishing a fact of legal significance and challenging a judgment, actions or inaction of a subject of authority may not be combined, since these demands are subject to courts of different jurisdictions.

The SC Grand Chamber also drew attention to the ineffectiveness of the approach to determining the jurisdiction of disputes on the establishment of legal facts in a judicial procedure depending on the purpose of the appeal and the presence of the applicant’s certain civil rights and obligations or the occurrence of public legal disputes with subjects of authority. After all, this will not contribute to the proper way of protecting the violated right of the applicant, because it will lead to the need to prove the same circumstances, events and facts at each appeal to the courts of different jurisdictions.

Taking into account the above, the SC Grand Chamber revoked the resolution of the appeal court on the satisfaction of the claim and upheld the judgment of the first instance court to reject the claim, having changed its motivational part.

Resolution of the SC GC of 18 January 2024 in the case No. 560/17953/21 (proceedings No. 11-150апп23) – https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/116512563.

This and other legal positions of the Supreme Court can be found in the Database of Legal Positions of the Supreme Court – https://lpd.court.gov.ua.