Subject of complaint: Main Department of the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre in Kyiv Oblast (StateGeoCadastre)
Complaint in brief: The Council received a complaint from Matyushi Agrofirm for consideration. The Complainant stated that another enterprise illegally occupied land parcels officially leased by the Complainant. To prove the unauthorized occupation of land plots by the other enterprise and calculate damaged suffered, the Complainant asked the StateGeoCadastre to conduct compliance of a potential offender with land protection legislation. However, the state agency refused. According to the StateGeoCadastre, the commercial court had already considered a number of disputes between the Complainant and its opponent. The position of the StateGeoCadastre seemed to be quite grounded: conducting an audit simultaneously with the consideration of a case in court could be treated as interference with the activities of the court.
Actions taken: In the course of complaint’s investigation , the Council’s investigator in charge analyzed open data information on pending disputes between the Complainant and the potential offender. As it turned out, the pending court trials concerned completely different alleged episodes of the Complainant’s rights violation.
The Council verbally and in writing explained to the StateGeoCadastre that court cases which constituted the ground for refusal to conduct the inspection associated with completely different periods of possible unauthorized occupation of the land parcels, other than those referred to by the Complainant.
Result achieved: After a while, the state authority fulfilled its obligation – conducted a relevant inspection and drew up a report. According to the Council, government agencies should be as consistent as possible in matters related to the right of ownership.
Taking this opportunity, we would like to remind you that the Council does not investigate complaints related to disputes between private companies, or subject to judicial consideration. However, in this particular case, the subject of the complaint concerned a specific episode of government agency omission, which has nothing to do with private relations or pending court proceedings.
07.03.2019