Deputy Prosecutor of Kyiv: «Courts don’t want to meet the interests of the community»

On Friday, October 5, for the first time in Kyiv, the roundtable in the building of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine brought representatives of initiative groups against the destruction of historic Kyiv, destruction of recreational and green zones and deterioration of human living conditions together with the deputy prosecutor of Kyiv Serhiy Repetsky, the architects Hleba V. and S. Duzhev, director of the department of cultural heritage O. Nikoriak, and director of one of the departments of the Ministry of Regional Building A. Ponomaryov. In the conference “Construction – reasons, results and ways of the crisis resolution” he first steps on the way to solving the most serious problem of Kyiv and the suburbs were outlined.

Deputy Prosecutor of Kyiv, Serhiy Repetsky, described a few barriers that do not give the capital prosecutors a quick opportunity to deal with dubious developments:

«Today, it is important for us to influence building processes through changes made to the legislation in 2011. First of all, because they changed criminal liability to administrative for entering false information in building documentation. In this connection, the builders are not afraid of administrative liability – the fines that exist.

The second problem is conducting inspections. If we want to go to court with a lawsuit to stop building, to save the public, to save the interests of the state and now need to indicate the interests of the state, need to make inspection in the present of the builder or his authorized person. If they are not present, it is impossible to make
the inspection. And even if such inspection is made, in future the builder goes to court and updates the canceled documents as a result of such inspection and updates his canceled declaration on the start of construction. In this case, it is important to make changes in legislation. We have already worked, will appeal to the cabinet of ministers. The Cabinet of Ministers only needs two resolutions,which will provide for a slightly different procedure – if the builder was warned about the inspection (at the address specified in his documents), he is considered to have been duly warned and the inspection can be made in his absence. In this case, the DABI and us are fully hands free.

The next question for the courts is to arrest those buildings that started at the stage of foundations, on the first or second floor, when the apartments haven’t yet sold, that there is not a violation of investors rights. When investors come, they begin to rally on their side and violate their rights.

And then the residents of neighboring plots against, these investors, and bacchanalian occurs. The courts don't want to meet the interests of the public! The public is the people, the people are the only source of power and we support the public interest, as defined by the constitution. In this case, it is the DPT. We filed 8 lawsuits. We have one decision on this matter. The judges (I would like to announce these colleagues) Himon, Moroz and judge-reporter Buchyk are judges of the High Court of the administrative chamber. These colleagues decided in case number 826/7910/17 that the prosecutor didn't prove, that the protection of interests in the field of city building development is not carried out or improperly carried out by a state authority, local authority or subject. Question: The Kyiv city council has decided to adopt the DPT, which authority should act? In this case, it is authority, that is supposed and present the interests of the public, he violated your interests, in our opinion and we went with an independent claim to the city council. It is not necessary, in my opinion, that the DPT in Nyvky should violate only the interests of those who live in Nyvky. It violates the rights of the entire public of Kyiv.

Next, the court wrote that the prosecutor does not have the authority to conduct the case in court, including to represent the interests of the city of Kyiv. Whom are we to represent? We want now to review this decision in another case. We want that the high court to review it and the high court Grand Chamber to give clarification on this matter. If we can’t keep the interests of the public, then I think that the function of representing the public, the constitutional function of the prosecutors , she is not needed and in this direction the prosecutors can be closed.

One more. We have a general plan for the city of Kyiv. It was approved after collecting a lot of opinions from various authorities: sanitary, firefighters, police, and many other structures. Now, when the DPT is adopted, it actually changes the general plan. But changing the general plan is a specific procedure that requires collecting new opinions! But here they decided to go through a simplified process. For example, the state committee will not agree to approve the DPT in this form. These DPT are ordered by builders, and they don’t hide it, they go to court. Their one interest is to build as much housing as possible, to make money. In some of our DPT, the green zone is being built up, which should also be consistent with the general plan. But this isn’t happening. We are trying to defend the interests of the public».