1. **Subject of the dispute:** Challenging the dismissal of a prosecutor from office based on Clause 9 of Part 1 of Article 51 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Prosecutor’s Office” in connection with the liquidation of a structural unit and failure to submit an application for transfer to the Office of the Prosecutor General.<\/p>\n
2. **Court’s arguments:**
\n – The Supreme Court emphasized the priority of the rule of law principle and the direct effect of the provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine over the provisions of laws that contradict the Basic Law.
\n – The Court stressed that courts are obliged to apply the norms of the Constitution as norms of direct effect if a law contradicts them, regardless of the existence or absence of a Constitutional Court of Ukraine ruling at the time the disputed legal relations arose.
\n – The legal position set forth in the Supreme Court resolution of December 10, 2024, in case No. 240\/19209\/21, was taken into account, according to which courts should not apply unconstitutional legal provisions even to legal relations that arose before they were officially declared unconstitutional.
\n – The lower courts mistakenly limited themselves to a formal application of the legislation in effect at the time of the dismissal, failing to assess the plaintiff’s arguments regarding the unconstitutionality of the grounds for his dismissal.
\n – The Supreme Court noted that the dismissal of a prosecutor based on an “automatic” notification provided by law constitutes an interference with the prosecutor’s independence and violates constitutional guarantees.
\n – The Court also pointed to the necessity of verifying compliance with the dismissal procedure, in particular, the fulfillment of the employer’s obligations regarding the offering of vacant positions in accordance with the requirements of the Labor Code of Ukraine.
\n – **Conclusion:** In this case, the Supreme Court confirmed its position regarding the application of the procedural mechanism (Part 4 of Article 7 of the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine), effectively consolidating a departure from previous approaches that limited the application of Constitutional Court rulings to “prospective” effect only.<\/p>\n
3. **Court decision:** The Supreme Court set aside the decisions of the courts of first and appellate instances and remanded the case for a new trial to the court of first instance for proper examination of the circumstances and assessment, taking into account the expressed legal positions.<\/p>\n