Adoption by the court of first instance of a decision regarding a deceased person without involving their successors is an absolute ground for annulment of such decision – SC GC

When a court adopts a decision regarding a deceased person as a legal subject, it is effectively resolving a dispute involving a subject who no longer existed at the time the decision was made. As a result, such a decision is adopted in the absence of a proper party, the proceedings effectively take place without a defendant, and this makes it impossible to realize the principle of adversarial proceedings and the right to be heard.

This concerns not merely a violation of procedural norms, but a defect in the subject-matter composition of the dispute, which makes it impossible to adopt a lawful and well-reasoned court decision.

These conclusions were made by the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court.

In this case, a prosecutor filed a lawsuit in the interests of the state, represented by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, seeking to remove obstacles to the exercise of the right to use and dispose of a land plot designated for forestry purposes by returning it to the state from the unlawful possession of a natural person.

The court of first instance granted the claim. The heir of the defendant, who had not participated in the case, appealed the court’s decision. In addition to violations of substantive law by the court, the grounds for the appeal included the fact that the court of first instance had issued its decision almost two years after the defendant’s death without involving the appellant as the defendant’s successor. The appellate court dismissed the appeal and upheld the decision of the court of first instance.  

When reviewing the case, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court emphasized that, in order to finally resolve the dispute and protect the violated right, the parties to the court proceedings must be precisely the parties to the disputed substantive legal relations. These parties act to protect their own interests and are subject to the legal force of the court decision.

Therefore, the proper defendant in a case is the person who is the subject of the substantive legal relationship — that is, the person against whom the claim can be satisfied in order to protect the violated right or interest of the plaintiff.

The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court disagreed with the appellate court’s conclusion that the death of a participant in the case before the decision was rendered may serve as a ground for its annulment only in conjunction with other arguments of the appeal. The Grand Chamber noted that such an approach effectively permits the existence and upholding of a court decision adopted in respect of a person who, at the time the decision was made, no longer possessed civil procedural legal capacity. This contradicts the very nature of civil proceedings, the requirement of participation by a proper party in the process, as well as the guarantees of a fair trial and the principle of adversarial proceedings.

The main flaw in this approach is that the death of a party before the decision is rendered is viewed merely as a procedural defect requiring additional proof of the decision’s unlawfulness on the merits. However, under the circumstances described (death of a party before the decision was rendered), there is simply no proper subject regarding whom the court could have adopted any decision at all.

Taking the above into account, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court concluded that the death of a party before the decision is rendered by the court of first instance constitutes an independent, sufficient, and absolute ground for annulling the court decision if the court adopted it regarding a deceased person without involving their successors.

Given that in this case the court of first instance adopted a judicial decision regarding a deceased person and this violation was not remedied by the appellate court in the manner prescribed by paragraph 4 of Part 3 of Article 376 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court quashed the decisions of the courts and remanded the case to the court of first instance for a new trial.

Resolution of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court dated May 13, 2026, in case No. 367/8835/16 — https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/136784631.

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.