Three StateGeoCadastre rulings under Article 53 CUAO cancelled, proceedings closed

The client’s problem

On 17 February 2022, a state inspector of the Main Department of the StateGeoCadastre in Kyiv Oblast issued three rulings under Article 53 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences (CUAO) against the client – a company director and the owner of a land plot. The inspector considered that the plots of the company and the client in Boryspil District were not being used for their designated purpose. Each ruling imposed a fine of UAH 340.

What we did

• We challenged all three rulings in a single claim before the Sviatoshynskyi District Court of Kyiv; the court restored the time limit for going to court.
• We asked the court to cancel the rulings and close the proceedings.

Outcome

By a judgment of 1 August 2022, the court allowed the claim: it declared all three rulings unlawful, cancelled them and closed the proceedings because there was neither an event nor the elements of administrative offences. The court noted that the materials gathered during a joint site visit with the police and a visual inspection of the plots with photographs were not proper and admissible evidence, and that the rulings did not specify which structures, in the inspector’s view, had been built unlawfully. The judgment became final on 1 September 2022. A supplementary judgment dealt with the legal costs.