The European Court of Human Rights will force Ukraine to pay compensations of 2,000-75,000 euros to every person whose rights are violated by the country’s moratorium on the sale of farmland, according to Alisa Pietukhova, a Ukrainian Justice Ministry official involved in liaising between the Hague court and the Ukrainian authorities.
An ECHR ruling on the case of “Zelenchuk and Tsytsyura vs. Ukraine” on May 22 recognized the moratorium as a violation of human rights and obliged Ukraine to pass a more balanced law.
The two plaintiffs in the case were awarded 3,000 euros in compensation each due to the state’s delay in lifting the moratorium.
In a statement reported by Ekonomichna Pravda on Nov. 6, Pietukhova said that if Ukraine fails to resolve the issue of the moratorium soon, the ECHR will start forcing the country to pay from 2,000 to 75,000 euros in compensation to each subsequent plaintiff, depending on its assessment of each individual claim.
“The ECHR decision for Ukraine is not a recommendation, it’s an instruction. And there’s not much time, because in its subsequent rulings the ECHR will award fair compensation to the plaintiffs,” says Pietukhova, who heads the department that coordinates the implementation of EHCR decisions at the Ministry of Justice.
In its ruling on the “Zelenchuk and Tsytsyura v. Ukraine” case, the EHCR said that Ukraine “had not struck a fair balance between the general interests of the community and the applicants’ property rights.”
The applicants were two Ukrainian citizens, from Ivano-Frankivsk and from Ternopil.
The Ukrainian Parliament extended the moratorium on the sale or alienation of agricultural land on Dec. 7, 2017, which was first imposed in 2002.
The creation of a properly functioning land market is one of the conditions for the continuation of cooperation between Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund.
