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Publication date: 30.04.2024
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SITUATION
On March 25, 2022, the government canceled the agreement on the recognition of Russian documents on education. The institution has an employee with a Russian education diploma who has been teaching history for more than 10 years. Can it continue to work?
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DECISION
Resolution No. 355 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dated March 24, 2022 "On denunciation of Agreements in the field of education and science with the Russian Federation" (hereinafter - Resolution No. 355), in particular, denounced the Agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Government of the Russian Federation on mutual recognition and equivalence documents on education and academic title, made in Moscow on May 26, 2000 (hereinafter - Recognition Agreement). At the same time, Resolution No. 355 does not say anything about what should happen to the recognition of those documents about the education of the Russian Federation that were issued before March 24, 2022 (that is, before the denunciation of the Recognition Agreement), but only states that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine must send appropriate notifications to the depository of the specified Agreements.
Taking into account the above, as well as other relevant legal acts (hereinafter referred to as the NPA), when deciding on the validity in Ukraine of previously issued (prior to the denunciation of the Recognition Agreement) Russian documents on education, as well as on the possibility of continuing the work of the relevant employees, it is appropriate to take into account the fact that there is a general rule in the legislation of Ukraine, according to which the law (legislative and other relevant NPAs), as a rule, does not have retroactive effect.According to Article 58 of the Constitution of Ukraine, laws and other NPAs do not have retroactive effect in time, except when they mitigate or cancel a person's responsibility. That is, a certain NPA does not apply to legal relations that arose before its issuance, if this is not directly stated in the corresponding NPA. However, in some cases, the law may have retroactive effect, for example, when it comes to mitigating or canceling certain liability, such as administrative or criminal, for actions that were carried out before the adoption of the new law.
FROM COURT PRACTICE
In the decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in the case of the retroactive effect of laws and other legal acts of February 9, 1999 No. 1-рп/99, it is stated, in particular, that according to the generally recognized principle of law, laws and other NPAs do not have retroactive effect in time . This principle is enshrined in the first part of Article 58 of the Constitution of Ukraine, according to which the effect of the NPA in time should be understood as starting from the moment of entry into force of this act and ending with its loss of validity, that is, to the event, fact, that law or another NPA is applied, under the time of action of which they occurred or took place.
The Constitution of Ukraine, enshrining in the first part of Article 58 the provisions regarding the inadmissibility of retroactive effect of laws and other NPAs, at the same time provides for their retroactive effect in cases where they mitigate or cancel the legal responsibility of a person, which is a generally recognized principle of law. That is, regarding legal responsibility, a new law or another NPA is applied, which mitigates or cancels the responsibility of a person for an offense committed during the operation of the NPA, which defined the concept of an offense and responsibility for it.
Thus, according to the general rule, to a specific fact or case, it is necessary to apply the NPA that was in force on the date when a certain fact or case occurred.
Accordingly, if at the time of submission of a person's Russian education documents at the time of employment, they were recognized in accordance with the then-current Recognition Agreement, then they also remain recognized even after the denunciation of the Recognition Agreement. This also meets the requirements of Article 17 of the Recognition Agreement, which states that in the event of termination of this Agreement, its provisions will continue to apply to the documents specified in the Agreement and issued before the termination of the Agreement.
