FIFTH SECTIONCASE OF OBARANCHUK v. UKRAINE(Application no. 41443/16)      JUDGMENT STRASBOURG3 April 2025 This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.In the case of Obaranchuk v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of: Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström, President, María Elósegui, Diana Sârcu, judges,and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,Having regard to:the application (no. 41443/16) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 11 July 2016 by a Ukrainian national, Ms Oksana Bogdanivna Obaranchuk (“the applicant”), who was born in 1971, lives in Ternopil and was represented by Mr R.O. Nebelskyy, a lawyer practising in Ternopil;the decision to give notice of the complaints under Article 6 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms M. Sokorenko, of the Ministry of Justice, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible;the parties’ observations;Having deliberated in private on 13 March 2025,Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE1. The applicant alleges that the acceptance of an appeal against a final judgment in her favour from a party who had not participated in the initial proceedings, and the quashing of that judgment on appeal was contrary to the principle of legal certainty and entailed a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.Background to the case and the 2012 judgment in the applicant’s favour2. The applicant’s late father, O., started the process for the privatisation of a plot of land (located in a village in the Kharkiv District, Kharkiv Region) in February 2007 but died in December 2007 without completing it. In 2009 the Kharkiv District State Administration (“the District Administration”) allocated the land to O., and the village council issued an ownership certificate in his name (“the 2009 decision”). There is no indication that any of those authorities were made aware of O.’s death. O.’s title to the land was never registered in the relevant property and land registers.3. The applicant asked a notary to recognise her as having inherited the land and to issue her with an ownership certificate but that request was refused, notably because she failed to produce the original of O.’s ownership certificate. She brought proceedings against the notary and the village council.4. In those proceedings, on 27 April 2012 the Ternopil Court declared that the applicant, as O.’s heir, was the owner of the land (“the 2012 judgment”)[1]. Since no appeal was lodged within the ten-day statutory time-limit, that judgment became final.The applicant’s efforts to register the land in her name and the transfer of the land to third parties5. On 27 June 2012 the applicant wrote to the District Administration, seeking clarification of how her right to the land could be registered under the 2012 judgment. She provided a copy of the judgment and of the ownership certificate in O.’s name.6. On 2 August 2012 the District Administration explained that for the applicant to be issued with a land-ownership certificate, she needed to apply to the local branch of the State Land Agency with responsibility for the area where the land was located.7. On 20 September 2012 the State Land Agency informed the applicant that it had no records in O.’s name of title deeds or survey records for the land in question.8. The applicant applied to the registration service of the Kharkiv District for registration of the land in her name, but this was refused. On 15 April 2013 the Ternopil Circuit Administrative Court ordered the registration service to register the land in the applicant’s name. On 30 March 2015 the Lviv Administrative Court of Appeal varied that judgment and ordered the registration service to duly examine the application for registration.9. In the meantime, on 14 June 2013 the District Administration had allocated the land in question to K. who had started the process of privatisation of the land on 7 November 2012.10. On 14 December 2013 K. sold the land to L.Appeal proceedings11. On 24 April 2015 L. appealed against the 2012 judgment submitting that he had learned of the 2012 judgment only through a prosecutor’s investigation in April 2015 (see paragraph 16 below).12. The applicant argued that to allow the appeal would be contrary to the principle of legal certainty. She pointed to the considerable time that had passed since the judgment. She also argued that domestic law did not allow L. to appeal because Article 292 of the Code of Civil Procedure of 2004 (as worded at the material time) provided that persons who did not participate in the proceedings could appeal against first-instance judgments only if they “determined” their rights and obligations. Since L. had acquired the land after the 2012 judgment, it could not be said that the judgment had determined his rights. The applicant relied on the Court’s findings in Diya 97 v. Ukraine (no. 19164/04, 21 October 2010).13. On 23 June 2015 the Ternopil Regional Court of Appeal allowed L.’s appeal holding that the applicant’s late father O. had not completed the process of privatisation of the land and that he had never acquired title to the land during his lifetime. An application for privatisation had been lodged in his name in December 2008, that is after his death, by unknown persons. The ownership certificate issued in the name of O. had not been duly registered.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 1
Outcome: violation