New procedural legislation: when it becomes effective?

On November 23, 2017 the President of Ukraine signed the Law of Ukraine On Amendments to the Economic Procedural Code of Ukraine, the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine, the Code of Administrative Court Procedure of Ukraine and Other Legislative Acts, No. 2147-19 (hereinafter - the “Law”).

On November 28, 2017 the official newspaper "Holos Ukrayiny" published the full text of the Law.

According to decision of the Supreme Court of Ukraine Plenary Session as of November 30, 2017, the first day of the Supreme Court's work and the effective date of the new procedural legislation shall be December 15, 2017 – a Day of Court Employees.

Provisions determining the efficiency of the judicial process were changed fundamentally. In particular:

• introduction of clear division of courts’ jurisdiction of different specializations (administrative, economic and general);

• unification of rules for implementation of civil, economic and administrative legal proceedings;

• introduction of effective mechanisms for prevention of abuse of court process;

• limitation of judges‘ powers to call for expert evidence, in addition the parties to the judicial trial shall have a right to involve their own experts;

• observance of judicial trial stages and reasonable terms of court cases;

• extension and strengthening of the role of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms and simplification of rules for peaceful settlement of disputes;

• other issues allowing to reduce the load on the judicial system.

It is provided for by a separate unit the introduction and settlement of the legal proceedings implementation with the use of information technologies ("electronic court"). In particular, execution of all procedural actions by means of electronic communication with the appropriate identification and security mechanisms. However, these provisions will come into force on the day when the Unified judicial information and communication systems start functioning.

The Unified judicial information and communication system will start functioning 90 days after the day of its publication by the State Judicial Administration of Ukraine in the newspaper "Holos Ukrayiny", as well as notification on the web portal of the judiciary of the creation and functioning of the Unified judicial information and communication system.

Please note that transitional provisions of each of the new procedural codes determined that cases in court of first instance and court of appeal, proceedings in which were opened prior to new editions of codes became effective, will be considered in accordance with the rules effective after this Law comes into force. However, only a special transfer procedure for further consideration of cases by the new Supreme Court is defined. Thus, economic, civil and administrative cases will be considered according to the new procedural codes from the first day when they come into force, no matter when the proceedings were opened or initiated.

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Eugene Litvinov