If the defendant died before the decision was made, the court cannot complete the consideration without involving the successors — Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court

When the court makes a decision regarding a deceased person as a legal entity, it effectively resolves a dispute concerning a subject who did not exist at the time of the decision, which means such a decision is made in the absence of a proper party; the process actually takes place without the defendant, making it impossible to implement the principle of adversarial proceedings and the right to be heard.

This is not about violating procedural norms, but about a defect in the subject composition of the dispute, which makes it impossible to adopt a lawful and well-founded court decision.

These conclusions were made by the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court.

Circumstances of case No. 367/8835/16

The prosecutor filed a claim in the interest of the state represented by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to remove obstacles to the exercise of the right to use and dispose of a forestry land plot by returning it to the state from illegal possession by an individual.

The first-instance court satisfied the claim. The defendant's heir, who did not participate in the case, appealed the court's decision. The grounds for the appeal, besides the violation of substantive law by the court, included the fact that the first-instance court made a decision almost two years after the defendant's death without involving the appellant as the defendant's successor. The appellate court dismissed the appeal and left the first-instance court's decision unchanged.

Reviewing the case, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court emphasized that to finally resolve the dispute and protect the violated right as a result of the judicial review, the parties in the court process must be precisely the parties to the disputed substantive legal relations who defend their interests and to whom the legal force of the court decision applies.

Thus, the proper defendant in the case is a person who is a subject of the substantive legal relationship, i.e., a person against whom the claim can be satisfied by protecting the violated right or interest of the plaintiff.

Conclusions of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court

The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court disagreed with the appellate court's conclusion that the death of a party before the decision can be grounds for its cancellation only together with other arguments of the appeal, noting that such an approach effectively allows the existence and enforcement of a court decision made regarding a person who no longer had civil procedural legal capacity at the time of the decision. This contradicts the very nature of civil proceedings, the requirements for the participation of a proper party in the process, as well as guarantees of a fair trial and the principle of adversarial proceedings.

The main mistake of this approach is that the death of a party before the decision is considered only as a procedural defect that requires additional proof of the illegality of the decision on the merits. However, under these conditions (death of the party before the decision), there is no proper subject regarding whom the court could have made a decision at all.

Considering the above, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court concluded that the death of a party before the decision (by the first-instance court) is an independent, sufficient, and unconditional ground for canceling the court decision if the court made it regarding a deceased person without involving successors.

Since in this case the first-instance court made a decision regarding a deceased person and this violation was not remedied by the appellate court in the manner provided by paragraph 4 of part 3 of article 376 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court canceled the court decisions and sent the case back to the first-instance court for a new hearing.

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