KYIV. Oct 24 (Interfax) - A resolution of the Ukrainian government dated October 23 regulates the procedure for studying documents which confirm the facts of the birth or death of a person in certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk Region outside Kyiv's control, the governmental website said on Thursday.
The resolution was worked out in connection with the enactment of the law on the peculiarities of the state policy to ensure Ukraine's state sovereignty on temporarily occupied territories in the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions, dated January 18, 2018, which implies that the activities of armed units in the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions is at odds with international laws, is illegal, and any act issued pertaining to this activity is null and void, and does not entail any legal consequences, except for documents which substantiate the facts of the birth or death of a person "on temporarily occupied territories."
"The government, in development of the so-called Namibian exception, which was formulated by the International Court of Justice and expanded in line with the practice of the European Court of Human Rights, has introduced the mechanism for substantiating the authenticity of medical certificates which have been issued in temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions by the relevant healthcare institutions and forensic examination institutions. The key principle of 'the Namibian exception' consists in the fact that for protecting fundamental human rights the registration of certain documents issued by the occupational authorities is inadmissible. At the same time, the fact that relevant documents are taken into account does not at all mean the recognition of the occupational authorities. For us it is important to fill with real content the provisions of the Ukrainian Constitution, under which a human being is recognized as being of highest value, while the state is responsible before human beings for its activity," Ukrainian Justice Minister Denys Maliuska said.
The issue of confirming the facts of birth and death in the territory where the Ukrainian bodies of state power "temporarily do not exercise their powers," will be considered by the ad hoc committee. The committee will have certain instruments to look into real circumstances of the case following each petition and issue a relevant resolution, which will serve as grounds for the registration by a body of the Civil Registration Office, Maliuska said.