On November 1, 2021, the Supreme Court, as part of the combined chamber of the Civil Court of Cassation, considered the case on the claim of PERSON_1 against PERSON_2, PERSON_3, a third party – Kropyvnytskyi City Council, for compensation for moral damage, damages caused by violation of the law and failure to comply with a court decision.
The local court accepted the claim for consideration and opened proceedings in the case, resolved the issue of securing the claim.
PERSON_1 submitted an application to the court to increase the claims and the local court refused the plaintiff to accept this application.
The appellate court returned the plaintiff's appeal against the court's decision, based on the fact that the contested decision on the refusal to accept the statement on the increase of claims is not included in the list of decisions that can be appealed separately from the court's decision, such a decision can be appealed in the appellate procedure simultaneously with court decision.
The Supreme Court annulled the decision of the appellate court, referred the case to the appellate court for further proceedings in view of the following.
In accordance with the sixth part of Article 185 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine, the court issues a decision on the return of the statement of claim. The decision to return the statement of claim may be appealed.
The decision of the court of first instance on the refusal to accept the application to increase the claims is not included in the list of decisions that can be appealed separately from the court decision in accordance with Article 353 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine.
The consequence of refusing to accept an application for an increase in claims is the return of such an application to the plaintiff.
Clause 6 of the first part of Article 353 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine stipulates that separate from the court decision, decisions of the court of first instance regarding the return of the application to the plaintiff (applicant) may be appealed in the appeal procedure.
If disputed relations are not regulated by law, the court applies the law that regulates similar content relations (analogy of law), and in the absence of such, the court proceeds from the general principles of legislation (analogy of law) (part nine of Article 10 of the Code of Civil Procedure of Ukraine).
In the case "Skoryk v. Ukraine" dated January 8, 2008, the European Court of Human Rights noted that in accordance with paragraph 1 of Article 6 of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, if there is an appeal procedure in the national legal order, the state must guarantee that persons , which are under its jurisdiction, are entitled to the basic guarantees provided for in Article 6 of the Convention in the appellate courts. The specifics of the proceedings under consideration and the set of proceedings carried out in accordance with the national legal order, as well as the role of the appellate court in them, must be taken into account.
Appellate proceedings are an important procedural guarantee of protection of the rights and legally protected interests of persons who participated in the consideration of the case in the cases and procedure established by the Civil Code of Ukraine.
Taking into account the fact that the procedural consequence of refusing to accept an application for an increase in claims is the return of such an application, which, in turn, can be appealed in accordance with the requirements of Article 353 of the Civil Code of Ukraine, the Supreme Court came to the conclusion that the court's decision on rejection of accepted applications for increasing claims may be appealed separately from the court decision.
You can read more about the text of the decision of the Supreme Court dated November 1, 2021 in case No. 405/3360/17 (proceedings No. 61-9545svo21) at the link https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/100918809 .