Legal Challenges for Ukraine under Martial Law: Protection of Civil, Property and Labour Rights, Right to a Fair Trial, and Enforcement of Decisions
Summary: 1. Introduction. – 2. Property Law Regulation under Martial Law in Ukraine (forcible seizure and alienation, compensation of damages). – 3. Features of the Work of the International Commercial Arbitration Court at the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (UCCI) in Wartime. – 4. Ukrainian Judiciary and Litigation amid War. – 5. Enforcement of Judicial Decisions in the Occupied Territory in Ukraine. – 5.1. Obstacles impeding commencement and termination of enforcement proceedings on the occupied territories and solutions. – 5.2. Introduction of other restrictive measures with regard to decision enforcement. – 5.3. Prospects for reducing the number of enforcement documents and scope of work of executors. – 6. Labour Law Regulations (restrictions of rights and freedoms of citizens under martial law). – 7. Conclusions.
Abstract
This is substantially updated paper, presented during the Department Talk: ‘Legal Challenges and Solutions for Ukrainians at Home and Abroad during War (Martial Law and the Protection of Property, Civil and Commercial Dispute Resolution, Labor Law and Tax Law)’ on 20 June 2022 at the University for Continuing Education, Krems, Austria (within the Ukrainian-Austrian R&D Project).
Background: On 24 February, Russia launched a military attack on the entire territory of Ukraine, in connection with which the President of Ukraine declared martial law. According to the Law of Ukraine ‘On Martial Law’, martial law is a special legal regime introduced in the event of armed aggression, danger to the state independence of Ukraine, or its territorial integrity and arranges for the provision of appropriate state authorities, military command, military administrations, and local authorities self-governance of the powers necessary to avert the threat, repel armed aggression and ensure national security, and eliminate the threat of danger to the state independence of Ukraine, its territorial integrity, as well as the temporary restriction of the constitutional rights and freedoms of persons and citizens and the rights and legitimate interests of legal entities within the validity period of these restrictions. This study is designed to analyse the consequences of armed aggression against Ukraine and the introduction of the appropriate legal regime in such areas as the realisation of property rights, the administration of justice, the enforcement of court decisions, and labour relations.
Methods: To achieve the goals of the research, general scientific and special methods of scientific research were applied, such as comparative-legal and semantic-structural methods and the method of grouping, analysis, synthesis, and generalization.
Results and Conclusions: The introduction of the martial law regime throughout the territory of Ukraine affected all spheres of life and, as a result, requires adaptation to modern realities. In particular, this consists of changes to the current legislation because the martial law regime involves the restriction of certain constitutional rights and freedoms of persons and the introduction of new mechanisms – for example, the suspension of labour relations, changes in the jurisdiction of courts for the possibility of justice, expanding the competence of private executors, and even making changes to the regulations of ICAC due to the impossibility of sending documents by mail, as well as allowing process participants to personally participate in meetings.
About Authors
Yuriy Prytyka, Dr., Prof., Head of Civil Procedure Department of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv; Arbitrator at the International Commercial Arbitration Court (ICAC); ex-Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5992-1144 Corresponding author, responsible for responsible for conceptualization, methodology, investigation, supervision and writing.
Iryna Izarova, Dr. Sc. (Law), Prof. of Civil Procedure Law at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv; Professor at the Department of Legal Studies and International Relations of the University for Continuing Education Krems, Kyiv, Ukraine, irina.izarova@knu.ua https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1909-7020 Co-author, responsible for conceptualization, methodology, project administration, resources, supervision and writing.
Liubov Maliarchuk, Cand. of Science of Law (Equiv. PhD), Associate Professor at Law School of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine, malyarchuk@knu.ua https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0169-0272 Co-author, responsible for responsible for investigation, data curation and writing.
Olena Terekh, Cand. of Science of Law (Equiv. PhD), Associate Professor of Civil Procedure at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine, olenaterekh@knu.ua https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6432-3787 Co-author, responsible for responsible for investigation, data curation and writing.
Competing interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest of relevance to this topic. Nevertheless, three of them serve on the board of AJEE (Prof. Prytyka as a Member of the Advisory Board, Prof. Izarova as an Editor-in-Chief, and Dr. Terekh as a managing editor); thus, they were not involved in decision-making, and this note underwent the full process of peer review and editing. To avoid potential conflict or the perception of bias, the final decisions for the publication of this note were handled by other editors, including choice of peer reviewers.
Disclaimer: The authors declare that all the opinions and views expressed in this manuscript are free of any impact of any organizations.
Translation: The content of this article was prepared by co-authors in English. Parts 2 and 3 were translated by Dr. Terekh.
Funding: The research, authorship, and/or publication of this article was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine [No M-52, May 24 2022, Ukrainian-Austrian R&D Projects].
Managing editor – Dr. Oksana Uhrynovska. English Editor – Dr. Sarah White.
Copyright: © 2022 Yu Prytyka, I Izarova, L Maliarchuk, O Terekh. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
References
Uhrynovska O, Slyvar N, ‘Enforcement Proceedings amid Military Aggression in Ukraine: Current Challenges’ (2022) 2 (14) Access to Justice in Eastern Europe 176-184. DOI: https://doi. org/10.33327/AJEE-18-5.2-n000219
Uhrynovska O, Vitskar A, ‘Administration of Justice during Military Aggression against Ukraine: The “Judicial Front”’ (2022) 3 (15) Access to Justice in Eastern Europe 1-10. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33327/AJEE-18-5.3-n000310
Izarova I, ‘Judicial Reform of 1864 on the Territory of the Ukrainian Provinces of the Russian Empire and Its Importance for the Development of Civil Proceedings in Ukraine’ (2014) 2 (4) RLJ 114-128.
Khotynska-Nor O, Potapenko A, ‘Courts of Ukraine in Wartime: Issues of Sustainable Functioning’ (2022) 31 Revista Jurídica Portucalense 218-240 <https://revistas.rcaap.pt/juridica/article/view/27385> accessed 30 July 2022.
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Keywords
- martial law, property law, judiciary, enforcement of judicial decisions, labour relations
How to cite it?
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Yu Prytyka, I Izarova, L Maliarchuk, O Terekh ‘Legal Challenges for Ukraine under Martial Law: Protection of Civil, Property and Labour Rights, Right to a Fair Trial, and Enforcement of Decisions’ 2022 3(15) Access to Justice in Eastern Europe 219-238. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33327/AJEE-18-5.2-n000329
