Occupation Does Not Guarantee Automatic Renewal of Deadlines: What the Supreme Court Says

The full-scale war has significantly affected citizens' ability to exercise their right to judicial protection. Millions of Ukrainians have been or continue to be in temporarily occupied territories, where access to government bodies, notaries, postal services, and the judicial system is practically absent or severely limited.

The issue of renewing deadlines due to occupation most often arises in inheritance, administrative, and social disputes.

Legislative Regulation

The Constitution of Ukraine guarantees everyone the right to judicial protection of their rights and freedoms.

At the same time, procedural legislation establishes deadlines for court appeals and the possibility of their renewal. For example, Article 127 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine provides that the court may renew a missed procedural deadline if it recognizes the reasons for missing it as valid. Similar mechanisms for renewing procedural deadlines are provided by the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine and the Commercial Procedure Code of Ukraine.

However, the legislation does not contain an exhaustive list of valid reasons, so judicial practice defines the criteria by which the circumstances of missing a deadline are assessed.

Important are also the provisions of the Law of Ukraine "On Ensuring the Rights and Freedoms of Citizens and the Legal Regime in the Temporarily Occupied Territory of Ukraine," which recognizes the special legal regime of such territories and the objective restrictions faced by their residents.

What Evidence Can Confirm Valid Reasons

Judicial practice shows that it is not enough to simply refer to the fact of occupation to renew a deadline.

Important may be documents confirming residence in the occupied territory, inability to leave, lack of transport connections, cessation of government bodies' work, loss of documents, lack of access to postal services or the Internet.

The more detailed the person confirms the impact of the occupation on the ability to exercise their right, the higher the likelihood of renewing the missed deadline.

Supreme Court's Approach

In the practice of 2024–2026, the Supreme Court consistently holds that martial law or occupation does not lead to automatic renewal of procedural deadlines.

For example, in the ruling dated April 10, 2025, in case No. 620/9540/24, the Supreme Court concluded that martial law, military service, or a previous court appeal, the claim of which was left without consideration, are not automatically valid reasons for missing the court appeal deadline.

The Court emphasized that to renew the deadline, the person must prove the presence of objective and insurmountable circumstances that were directly causally connected with the impossibility of timely filing the claim. General references to martial law or military service without specific evidence of how these circumstances hindered court appeal do not justify missing the procedural deadline and are not grounds for departing from the principle of legal certainty.

The Supreme Court applied a similar approach in the ruling dated July 28, 2025, in case No. 320/1753/23, emphasizing that martial law, air raid alerts, power outages, or other consequences of war by themselves are not valid reasons for missing the court appeal deadline.

In case No. 616/905/19, the Supreme Court explained the conditions for recognizing a valid reason for missing a procedural deadline due to the introduction of martial law.

The Supreme Court has also repeatedly considered cases on determining additional deadlines for accepting inheritance when heirs lived or the inheritance opened in temporarily occupied territories. Courts proceed from the fact that occupation, lack of access to Ukrainian notarial bodies, and the impossibility of safely crossing the demarcation line may be valid reasons for missing the deadline to accept inheritance, but these circumstances must be proven in each specific case.

It is precisely in cases related to temporarily occupied territories that courts most often recognize valid reasons for missing deadlines, as persons may be deprived of access to notaries, government bodies, documents, and means of communication.

Thus, the key criterion for the court is not the mere fact of being in the occupied territory, but the presence of a proven causal link between the occupation and the impossibility of timely court appeal.

What to Do If the Deadline Was Missed Due to Occupation

• Collect evidence of being in the temporarily occupied territory during the period when the procedural deadline expired.
• Prepare documents confirming the impossibility of leaving, lack of access to government bodies, notaries, postal services, or means of communication.
• Explain in detail to the court how exactly the occupation affected the ability to timely seek protection of rights.
• Confirm the causal link between the occupation and missing the deadline with proper evidence.
• After obstacles are removed, do not delay appealing to the court, as prolonged inactivity may be assessed unfavorably for the applicant.

Problematic Aspects of Law Enforcement

Courts differently assess the sufficiency of evidence confirming the impact of occupation on the ability to appeal to the court. In addition, difficulties arise in cases where a person, after leaving the occupied territory, did not take any actions to protect their rights for a long time.

In such situations, courts often conclude that further inactivity cannot be justified solely by previous residence in the occupied territory.

Thus, occupation is not an automatic ground for renewing the deadline but may be recognized as a valid reason if the person proves that it objectively prevented timely court appeal.

This approach simultaneously ensures the principle of legal certainty and guarantees real access to justice for persons affected by the consequences of war and temporary occupation of Ukraine's territory.

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