The Supreme Court of Ukraine is considering cassation appeal in case No. 910/11679/22 on the resale and legalization of property rights to several companies worth hundreds of millions of hryvnias belonging to the CZI NGO.
The registration procedures that led to the change of real estate owners were illegal - this was the conclusion of the Anti-Raider Commission of the Ministry of Justice. Based on the results of her work, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine issued Order 4191-5 dated September 30.09.2022, XNUMX, which recognized the right of ownership for the public organization "CZI".
In response to this, the persons who claimed their rights to this property appealed to the Commercial Court of Kyiv with a demand to annul the Order of the Ministry of Justice.
Their main argument was a legal dispute between two outsiders regarding their cohabitation as husband and wife, and they "dispute", in particular, about the property belonging to "CZI".
"The essence of their arguments is not to deny the fact of theft, but to the statement that the Ministry of Justice does not have the authority to consider the case of theft," emphasized the lawyer of "CZI" Oleksandr Yefremov. — And the following fact speaks of the artificiality of the lawsuit: the meeting of the Anti-Raiders Commission of the Ministry of Justice to consider this case was scheduled for December 15, 2021. Knowing this, our opponents hurried to file a lawsuit the day before, on December 14, to disrupt the process."
The new owners insist that the Ministry of Justice should not have considered the complaints from the plaintiffs, as cases involving the same persons and for similar reasons were already pending in the courts at that time.
However, the lawyers of "CZI", and most importantly, the Ministry of Justice itself, emphasize that the parties and grounds in the mentioned cases are significantly different both in terms of the participants and the subject of the dispute. So, we have a clear example of cunning manipulation, the purpose of which is to prolong the proceedings.
Meanwhile, from July 26, 2022, the Law "On State Registration of Property Rights to Immovable Property and Their Encumbrances" is in effect in a new version, where the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine is empowered to consider complaints against state registrars' decisions on registration of rights. In this case, the existence of a dispute regarding real estate does not affect the powers of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine.
However, despite the fact that the new version of the Law is now in effect, opponents continue to use the old wording in their lawsuits, and the court of first instance did not want to take into account this legal nihilism.
According to by the decision of the Supreme Court of January 30, 2024, the cassation proceedings in this case are suspended until the review by the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court of case No. 916/4093/21 is completed. However, according to the lawyers, the provisions of the laws in force at the time of their occurrence should be applied to disputed legal relations.
The slow investigation of a criminal case cannot be explained by its complexity — on the contrary, all the data is in the public domain. At the same time, the new "owners" continue to use the disputed property and do not comply with the orders of the Ministry of Justice due to the imposition of strange pre-trial arrests.
The lawyers of "CZI" are convinced that the dispute should be considered by the High Chamber of the Supreme Court, and not by the Court of Cassation, since a larger number of judges will increase confidence in the fairness of the decision and reduce suspicions of bias and involvement.
