SC Grand Chamber: Failure to Consider a Motion to Postpone Case Hearing Does Not Always Lead to Annulment of the Decision

If a person was properly notified about the date, time, and place of the court hearing, but the court did not consider their motion to postpone or refused it without proper justification, such procedural violation does not fall under the scope of paragraph 5 of part 1 of Article 411 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine (paragraph 5 of part 1 of Article 310 of the Commercial Procedure Code of Ukraine and paragraph 3 of part 3 of Article 353 of the Administrative Procedure Code of Ukraine).

The decisive factor in such a case is whether such procedural violation led to a situation where the party was deprived of a reasonable opportunity to effectively present their case, being placed in a significantly disadvantageous position compared to their opponent.

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

In this case, the plaintiff filed a claim to recover inflation losses and three percent annual interest due to the defendant’s failure to fulfill a monetary obligation under a loan agreement.

The court of first instance satisfied the claim, and the appellate court left the decision unchanged.

In the appeal, the defendant stated that the court of first instance unlawfully considered the case in his absence and without his representative, ignoring the motion they submitted to postpone the hearing. The defendant made similar arguments regarding the decisions of the courts of first and appellate instances in the cassation appeal, considering such procedural violation an unconditional ground for annulment of court decisions.

Reviewing the case, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court noted that hearing a case in the absence of a participant who was not notified about the place, date, and time of the hearing undoubtedly indicates a violation of fundamental principles of justice such as the rule of law, equality and adversarial nature of the parties, openness of the judicial process, and constitutes a significant violation of procedural rights, as formulated in paragraph 1 of Article 6 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms concerning the right to a fair trial.

Such procedural violation, according to paragraph 5 of part 1 of Article 411 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine, is an independent, mandatory, and unconditional ground for annulment of court decisions and referral of the case for a new hearing to the court that committed the violation to correct the procedural law breaches.

At the same time, the appellate court’s failure to resolve a motion to postpone the hearing filed by a properly notified participant may be grounds for annulment of the court decision under part 3 of Article 411 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine if, under the circumstances of the case, it deprived the absent participant of a reasonable opportunity to effectively present their position in court, placed them in a significantly disadvantageous position compared to the opponent, or made it impossible to establish factual circumstances relevant to the correct resolution of the case.

Therefore, the consequences of such procedural violation must be assessed by the cassation court regarding how it affected the realization of the person’s right to access justice.

The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court emphasized that a correct and lawful court decision on the merits cannot be annulled solely on formal grounds.

The SC Grand Chamber confirmed the established practice of cassation courts, according to which the main condition for postponing a case hearing is not the absence of parties at the hearing provided they were properly notified about the time and place of the hearing, but the impossibility of resolving the dispute at the respective hearing.

Considering the above and the specific circumstances of this case, the SC Grand Chamber concluded that the appellate court’s failure to resolve the defendant’s motion to postpone the hearing did not deprive him of a reasonable opportunity to effectively present his position, did not place him in a significantly disadvantageous position compared to the plaintiff, and did not prevent establishing factual circumstances relevant to the correct resolution of the case, and therefore did not lead to an unlawful decision.

In view of the foregoing, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court dismissed the cassation appeal and left the decisions of the courts of first and appellate instances unchanged.

The resolution of the SC Grand Chamber dated July 8, 2026, in case No. 757/52615/21-c can be found at this link.

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