An Odessa lawmaker accused her colleagues of seeking to replace the court in land disputes

Olga Kvasnytska, a member of the Odessa City Council (Servant of the People) appealed to Acting Mayor Ihor Koval, requesting that he remove from the agenda of the September 9 city council session a draft resolution on the establishment of a Commission for the Consideration of Land Disputes.

The councilwomanstated that her colleagues on the Standing Committee on Spatial Development, Land Management, and Regulation of Land Relations intend to lobby for commercial business interests by bypassing the regular courts.

Olga Kvasnytska stated that Article 158 of the Land Code clearly stipulates that the city council may resolve boundary disputes only between citizens. Business disputes fall exclusively within the jurisdiction of the commercial court. 

According to the draft resolution, the chair of the commission for resolving land disputes is to be Councilwoman Zhanna Mandrychenko (European Solidarity), who noted in a comment to the Center for Public Investigations that she agrees with her colleague Olga Kvasnytska that Article 158 of the Land Code authorizes the city council to consider disputes only between individuals, and that is precisely why the draft resolution currently being proposed for consideration at the session refers specifically to legal entities.

The councilwoman also confirmed that the commission for resolving land disputes has indeed existed since 2021 and, moreover, that she herself heads it; consequently, she constantly faces the problem of the commission being unable to help residents who have turned to it. The councilwoman emphasized that the current proposal is not to create a new commission, but rather to amend the regulations governing the existing commission and restructure it. 

Кирило Бойко