On 16 September 2026, during the public part of the plenary hearing held in the form of written proceedings, the Second Senate of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine considered a case concerning a constitutional complaint lodged by Yurii Cherkaskyi.
Judge-Rapporteur in the case Galyna Yurovska noted that the subject entitled to lodge a constitutional complaint petitioned to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to review the compliance with the Constitution of Ukraine of Article 6.1.4 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Material Liability of Servicemen and Persons Equated to them for Damage Caused to the State” no. 160-IX, dated 3 October 2019 (hereinafter the “Law”).
Pursuant to the contested provision of the Law a person bears material liability in the full amount of the damage caused through his/her fault in the event of “an act (actions or omissions) having the characteristics of a criminal offence.”
As Judge-Rapporteur noted, the complainant set out the following circumstances of the case.
By order of the commander of the military unit, Yurii Cherkaskyi was issued a severe reprimand and was held fully materially liable.
The complainant challenged this order before the Zaporizhzhia District Administrative Court. The Court partially upheld the claims: it cancelled the commander’s order insofar as it concerned the issuance of a severe reprimand to Lieutenant Colonel Yurii Cherkaskyi and dismissed the remainder of the claims. Therefore, the Court of Appeal cancelled the first-instance court’s decision insofar as the claims had been upheld and adopted a new judgment in that part, dismissing that claim.
The Supreme Court dismissed the complainant’s cassation appeal and left the judgments of the lower courts unchanged. In its judgment, the Supreme Court, in particular, stated that “the complainant’s reference to the fact that the amount of damage had been determined by allocating it among several persons without establishing the precise individual degree of fault of each of them does not call into the question the lawfulness of the courts’ conclusions. The provision of paragraph 3 of the Procedure for Conducting Official Investigations in the Armed Forces of Ukraine <…> do not require the mandatory determination of a mathematically precise proportion of fault of each participant in cases of joint causation of damage. At the same time, the courts established that, while serving as a commander of the military unit, the claimant issued unlawful orders concerning the preparation of fictitious waybills and created conditions for the unjustified fuel write-off, which has a direct causal connection with the damage caused.”
In the complainant’s view, certain provisions of the Law applied in the final judicial decision allow an administrative body to independently establish the present of “characteristics of criminal offence” in a person’s actions and to impose a punitive measure to that person. Such actions effectively assume the powers of bodies of criminal justice and the court, which are the only entities authorized to establish the criminal unlawfulness of an act.
Galyna Yurovska stated that in order to ensure an objective and comprehensive consideration of the case inquiry letters would be sent to the bodies of public power and scientific institutions concerning the issues raised in the constitutional complaint. The judges would be informed of the substance of the responses during the closed parts of the plenary sessions. The Judge also added that the case file contains responses to requests for information submitted by Yurii Cherkaskyi from the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, and the Main Department of the Military Law and Order Service of the Armed Forces of Ukraine of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
Having examined the case materials, the Second Senate proceeded to the in-camera part of the plenary session for further discussion of issues related to the constitutional proceedings in this case.
A video recording of the plenary hearing is available on the Court’s official website under heading “Video Broadcasts of the Constitutional Court’s Hearings” – “Archive of Video Broadcasts of Hearings”.
