LEGAL ADVICE. How to prove the fact of a relative's death in the uncontrolled territories to Ukrainian state authorities?

In the event of the death of a relative in the temporarily uncontrolled territory of Donbas, you need to go to court, as other mechanisms for establishing the fact of death are still not in place.

Despite the fact that the Law of Ukraine ‘On Peculiarities of the State Policy on Ensuring the State Sovereignty of Ukraine in the Temporarily Occupied Territories in Donetsk and Luhansk Regions’ provides that any act adopted in the temporarily uncontrolled territory is invalid, except for documents confirming the fact of birth or death, birth and death registration continues to be carried out through the courts.

Thus, in order to obtain death certificates for a person who died on the temporarily uncontrolled territory of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, it is necessary to

• Apply to any civil registry office within the territory controlled by Ukraine and receive a written refusal, which should be used to prepare an application to the court.
• -To file an application to any court on the territory controlled by Ukraine to establish the fact of a person's death on the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine. We advise you to apply to the court at the location of the registry office where you received the refusal, so that you can obtain the court decision promptly and conveniently and immediately apply to the registry office for a certificate.
• After a positive court decision, apply to the registry office for a death certificate.

The nuances of filing a lawsuit:

1.   An application for establishing the fact of a person's death in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine is filed with the court by the relatives of the deceased or their representatives, lawyers (Article 257-1 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine). In this case, the latter must have a power of attorney from the relative whose interests they represent or an agreement with a lawyer.
2. Paragraph 21 of Article 5 of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Court Fees’ exempts applicants for applications for the establishment of facts of legal significance filed in connection with armed aggression, armed conflict, temporary occupation of the territory of Ukraine, natural or man-made emergencies, that resulted in forced relocation from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, death, injury, captivity, unlawful imprisonment or abduction, as well as violation of the right to ownership of movable and/or immovable property or other objects. Thus, there is no court fee for filing a court application to establish the fact of death of a person who is in the temporarily occupied territory of Donbas.
3.  The court procedure for establishing a legal fact is carried out without the involvement of the defendant.
4. The interested party is the registry office that issued the refusal to issue the death certificate.
5. The courts are obliged to make decisions on establishing the fact of death in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk or Luhansk oblasts immediately, i.e. within 1 day after the receipt of the application. In practice, this can take several days (if the judge's workload is high).
6. A court decision in cases of establishing the fact of a person's death in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine, as defined by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, is subject to immediate execution. Its appeal does not suspend the execution of this decision.
7.  A copy of the court decision shall be issued to the persons participating in the trial and immediately sent by the court to the registry office at the place of the decision for state registration of the person's death.
    

Requirements for a statement of legal fact:

The application must state

• what fact the applicant asks the court to establish and for what purpose;
• reasons for the impossibility of obtaining a document certifying the fact of death, in our case, a written refusal of the registry office to register the fact of death;
• evidence confirming family relations with the deceased (for example, the applicant's birth certificate);
• any other evidence confirming the fact of death.
   

In the absence of any evidence of burial, there have been cases in court practice where a judge has requested photographs from the deceased's grave, audio and video recordings, and witness testimony.

After receiving a court decision establishing the fact of death, the applicant has the right to apply to any registry office to register the death of their relative and obtain a death certificate and an extract of death to receive a burial allowance.