Court to investigate re-registration of UOC communities in Vinnytsia region

The District Administrative Court of Kyiv decided to appeal to the law enforcement bodies of Vinnytsia oblast to check the actions of the Vinnytsia Regional State Administration in the re-registration of the UOC communities for compliance with the law.

This is stated in a separate ruling of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv.

The court reminded that as early as July 30, 2021, the Vinnytsia Regional State Administration was prohibited from any registration actions in relation to religious communities in the villages of Bakhtin, Verbovets, Kotiuzhany and Snytkiv in the Vinnytsia region. However, the officials argued that this decision did not prevent them from carrying out new re-registrations of the communities, reports the Telegram channel of the NGO “Miriane” (“Laity”).

"This statement by the head of the Department for Nationalities and Religions of the Vinnytsia Regional State Administration not only contradicts the content of the very court ruling of 30.07.2021, to which he gave an unauthorized interpretation which is not provided for by current legislation but also contradicts the information of the Unified State Register of legal entities, individuals-entrepreneurs and public associations, which has been entered," the court says.

The court noted that Vinnytsia RSA officials violated the law by re-registering the communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

"Officials of the Vinnytsia Regional State Administration and the Department for Nationalities and Religions of the Vinnytsia Regional State Administration violated the current legislation, i.e. failure to execute the court ruling, namely the court ruling of 30.07.2021; carrying out registration activities with an incomplete set of documents; failure to enter (deliberately or negligently) the information about the court injunction into the USR; providing inaccurate information about the availability of the complete registration package in correspondence at the lawyer's request, etc.," says the court ruling.

Thus, the court determined that the actions of the Regional State Administration fall under the signs of criminal offences. The court sent this ruling to the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine (so they could make decisions about the Vinnytsia RSA officials) and also to law enforcement agencies (the Main Department of the National Police in the Vinnytsia Region, Vinnytsia Regional Prosecutor's Office and Vinnytsia Regional SSU) for checking the actions of Vinnytsia OSA officials that have signs of criminal offences.

As reported earlier, the court banned Vinnytsia officials from re-registering the UOC communities.

Because of the officials' actions, UOC believers held the prayer standing under the walls of the Vinnytsia City State Administration; the UOJ reported its course and reasons in detail.