The Verkhovna Rada on May 14 adopted as a basis bill 13192 on improving the procedure for the distribution of court costs and court fees. The bill proposes amendments to the Code of Administrative Procedure, the Commercial and Civil Procedure Codes, as well as the Law ‘On Court Fees’.
In particular, in the Civil Procedure Code, the authors propose to establish that a court, taking into account the financial situation of a person, exempts from paying court fees if the amount of the court fee exceeds 5% of the income of such person for the previous calendar year. When determining the financial situation of a person, the court may take into account information on the size of income for the previous calendar year, the maintenance of non-working family members, the presence of real or personal property, as well as other circumstances.
Additionally, it is envisaged to determine the amount of court fees for the submission of cassation and appeal complaints by individuals in accordance with the principle of reasonableness, taking into account their financial situation, and not restricting access to justice.
Specifically, it is proposed to set the maximum court fee amounts for individuals:
- for the submission of an appeal complaint – not more than 7 subsistence minimums for able-bodied persons, i.e. not more than 21,196 UAH. And in social cases (protection of labor, family, housing rights, etc.) – not more than 3 subsistence minimums. That is, not more than 9,084 UAH.
- for the submission of a cassation complaint to the Supreme Court, the corresponding limits will be 10 subsistence minimums (30,280 UAH). And, accordingly, 5 subsistence minimums in social, labor, housing, family cases, compensation for health damage. That is, not more than 15,140 UAH when applying to the Supreme Court in social cases.
That is, it is proposed that citizens pay no more than 30,280 UAH for submitting a complaint to the Supreme Court.
For legal entities, the situation will remain unchanged.
In addition, the bill clarifies the grounds for exemption, reduction, deferral or installment payment of court fees, taking into account the individual circumstances of each case.
The bill also introduces a provision under which if an additional court decision resolves only the issue of court costs, such a decision may be made in writing without notifying the parties to the case if the court does not consider it necessary to appoint a relevant court hearing.