Legal declaration of a person as deceased vs determination of the fact of death

Abstract

A wide range of issues related to identifying the problems and prospects for considering cases on applications for declaring a person dead or estab­lishing the fact of his death has been highlighted. The relevance of the study is due to the dynamism of judicial practice in resolving cases on applications of such categories, the circumstances, which are taken into account when considering applications, and the evidence provided to confirm them. The above is due to the long-term effect of the legal regime of martial law, general mobilization, active hostilities in part of the territory of Ukraine, and constant attacks by the russian federation on civilian infrastructure facilities, which has led and continues to lead to a large number of casualties among the civilian popu­lation and the death of servicemen while defending the Motherland. Quite often, it is impossible to register the death of such persons through civil status registration bodies. Therefore, conducting an analysis, mostly of judicial practice in cases on applications for declaring a person dead or estab­lishing the fact of his death, becomes particularly relevant. The study has practical significance for forming the proposals regarding the collection and submission of evidence when considering cases of the specified categories in court. The study is based on the hypothesis that, in the current conditions, with the country under martial law, approaches to the consideration by courts of cases on applications for declaring a person deceased or establishing the fact of his death, the evidence, their types, on confirming the presence or absence of grounds for satisfying applications in such a category of cases, as well as the terms after which a person can be declared deceased, are changing. To verify and confirm this hypothesis, a system of general scientific and special legal methods of cognition was applied. The invol­vement of analytical methods, such as deduction, induction, and comparison, made it possible to outline the existing legal problems when considering cases on applications for declaring a person deceased or establishing the fact of his death. A systematic approach was used to identify the interconnections between individual types of the specified legal relations. The formal-legal method was used as the basis for determining some features of the consideration of cases on applications for declaring a person deceased or establishing the fact of his death. Based on the empirical method, the legal positions of the Supreme Court on the application of substantive and procedural law norms in cases on applications for declaring a person deceased or establishing the fact of his death by courts of first and appellate instance were studied. The forecasting method made it possible to outline the prospects for the development of the studied sphere of legal relations. The results obtained in the course of the conducted research confirmed the proposed hypothesis.