Court bans referendum on the fate of UOC church in Ptichiya village

The referendum in the village of Ptichiya of the Dubno district, Rovno region, about the title rights to the UOC church is not to be held – such a decision was made by the Zhitomir Administrative Court of Appeal on September 14, 2017.

The court hearing in Zhitomir was held in the presence of the Ptichiya village head Yaroslav Vozniuk, who, in fact, is one of the initiators of holding referendums in the village. Although, according to eyewitnesses, during the court session Vozniuk, tried to deny his responsibility for the decision "On holding a local referendum in the village of Ptichiya regarding the fate of the religious building of the Holy Assumption Church" taken at an extraordinary session of the village council.

"At the time of the adoption of decision No. 324 of March 22, 2017 by the Ptichiya village council, there was no law that regulated the issues of holding a local referendum," said Ekaterina Ivaniuk, a human rights activist of the Rovno eparchy. "Therefore, there is no legal basis for exercising the right to conduct a local referendum, stipulated by Art. 7 and para. 18 of Art. 26 of the Law of Ukraine "On Local Self-Government in Ukraine". In addition, such questions are not at all within the competence of village councils."

The Zhitomir Administrative Court of Appeal is the second instance in which believers of the UOC of the village of Ptichiya were forced to apply to ban holding a village referendum. At first this issue was considered on March 25, 2017 by the Dubno District Court. Then the hearing was held under the scrutiny of the local press and several dozen aggressively-minded pseudo-patriots.

During the hearing, representatives of the UOC-KP asserted that they were not going to violate Ukrainian legislation, but would only conduct a survey and find out the opinion of the residents about their religious affiliation. After hearing the above arguments, the Dubno District Court denied the community of the UOC in the lawsuit.

Nevertheless, disagreeing with the decision of the first instance court, the believers of the UOC appealed the ruling and achieved justice.