On June 14, 2017, the Administrative Court of Appeal of Kyiv declared Decree no. 1035 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine of December 14, 2015, illegal and void. The decree established an exclusive list of personal items that Crimeans could take with them to the mainland.

This was reported by Daria Svyrydova, a lawyer of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, that supported the claim concerning cancellation of the decree.

According to her, on 20 March 2017, the referred decree was declared illegal by the District Administrative Court of Kyiv, then the decision was appealed, and the Court of Appeal today confirmed the illegality of the decree.

The case was initiated by the public reception of the Odessa regional organization of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine and supported by the Strategic Litigations Center of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.

Human rights defenders have repeatedly said that Decree no. 1035 of the Cabinet of Ministers significantly restricts the rights of the Crimean people on carrying personal belongings into mainland Ukraine. According to this decree, Crimeans were forbidden to carry personal belongings from temporarily occupied territory, except for 23 items under Article 370 of the Custom Code of Ukraine. In the list of allowed things, you could find such items as pagers, portable TV, ski poles, typewriter and more. However, you cannot carry a coffee machine, microwave, drill and even a tea set.

Also, according to Daria Svyrydova, the decree limits the types and number of socially important goods that can be carried from Crimea or to it. Thus, the total value of these goods should not exceed the equivalent of UAH 10 000, and the total weight should not exceed 50 kg per person.

‘And most importantly, this document issued by the Cabinet of Ministers does not make it possible to protect the property rights under Ukrainian jurisdiction. Despite public statements made by officials about the need to abolish regulations, numerous litigation and the trial for the abolition of this decision in the first instance that had been won in March 2017 – this decree had been in force until today. Only on June 14, 2017, the Administrative Court of Appeal of Kyiv declared illegal and void Decree no. 1035. So, for Crimeans, the ban to caryy their stuff does not work! There is only the fear that the government did not accept the new resolution that would complicate life,’ said Daria Svyrydova.

We recall that in December 2016, the case on the prohibition of carry personal items by those resetlled from the Crimean peninsula that are not included in the list had been won. But the recognition of the illegality of the prohibition applied only to one particular plaintiff.

And in 2017, Crimeans continued to deal with the effect of the ban. In particular, the resonance case came when a student was trying to carry his belongings through the checkpoint on the Ukrainian administrative border of Crimea for almost two days. Then we were talking about a used microwave, used coffee machine, used grill, used toaster, used hammers and used drill.

On 9 February, nine human rights NGOs appealed to Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Hroisman with a request to initiate amendments to Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine no. 1035, which defines the list of personal properties allowed to carry, when entering mainland Ukraine through checkpoints on the administrative border with Crimea.

Information Human Rights Center