Who is the Owner? Newly Discovered Circumstances and the Principle of Legal Certainty in a Single Case Study
Summary: 1. Introduction. – 2. The Case Facts. – 2.1. The Ukrainian Court’s Position. – 2.2 The ECtHR’s Position. – 3. Newly Discovered Circumstances in Ukrainian Legislation and Doctrine. – 4. Concluding Remarks.
Abstract
Background: The protection of property rights is one of the cornerstones of legal order. If we were uncertain whether ownership would be protected from claims or whether contract obligations would be executed properly, we could not regulate relations effectively. Courts play a crucial role in this mechanism of protecting the owner’s rights, giving parties possibilities for defence.
This note is related to one of the last judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the focus of which is on newly discovered circumstances and the principle of legal certainty. The facts of this case arose from a property sale contract with a condition, the validity of which led to the consideration of multiple cases by different Ukrainian courts.
Methods: In light of the above, an analysis of this ECtHR judgment, as well as the final and interim decisions of Ukrainian courts, with regard to Ukrainian legislation and case law was prepared. The main challenge was the absence of the oldest decisions of national courts in the state register of court decisions, which contains only decisions from 2011. Even so, the facts of this case were described in detail in the latest courts decisions.
Results and Conclusions: The following analysis provides an argument against reopening procedure without proper grounds, which lead to the violation of the right to a fair trial in civil procedure in Ukraine.
About Authors
Urazova Ganna
Cand. of Science of Law (Equiv. Ph.D.), Assist. Prof. at Civil Law Department, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, Kharkiv, Ukraine. ganna_urazova@nlu.edu.ua https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3588-518X Corresponding author, responsible for submission, text writing and study preparing, responsible for ensuring that the descriptions and the manuscript are accurate and agreed by all authors.
Competing interests: Any competing interests were announced.
Disclaimer: The author declares that her opinion and views expressed in this manuscript are free of any impact of any organizations.
Yanyshen Victor
Cand. of Science of Law (Equiv. Ph.D.), Associate Professor at Civil Law Department, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, Kharkiv, Ukraine. v.p.yanyshen@nlu.edu.ua https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1495-613X Co-author, responsible for data collection and writing.
Competing interests: Any competing interests were announced.
Disclaimer: The author declares that his opinion and views expressed in this manuscript are free of any
impact of any organizations.
Baranova Liudmyla
Cand. of Science of Law (Equiv. Ph.D.), Associate Professor at the Department of Law, Lutsk National
Technical University, Lutsk, Ukraine. Filiuk.alexandra@ltnu.ua https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1717-3146 Co-author, responsible for data collection and writing.
Competing interests: Any competing interests were announced.
Disclaimer: The author declares that her opinion and views expressed in this manuscript are free of any impact of any organizations.
The content of this article was translated with the participation of third parties under the authors’ responsibility.
Managing editor – Dr. Serhii Kravtsov. English Editor – Dr. Sarah White.
Copyright: © 2022 Urazova G, Yanyshen V, Baranova L. 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.
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Urazova G, Yanyshen V, Baranova L ‘Who is the Owner? Newly Discovered Circumstances and the Principle of Legal Certainty in a Single Case Study’ (2022) 1(13) Access to Justice in Eastern Europe 193-202. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33327/AJEE-18-5.1-n000105
