As winter begins its annual retreat, the capital’s severe weather problems start to disappear on their own – not because of effective snow shoveling and street clearing by municipal authorities.
It’s the same
story year after year in Kyiv. Regrettably, the nation’s feeble judicial system
has no remedy to hold anybody in government accountable.
This winter,
an unusually heavy amount of
snow fell in Kyiv,
causing two emergency situations. One was in December when Kyivans in three
days saw two months worth of snow. The second happened on Jan. 21, when it
rained heavily before the temperatures dropped to below-freezing again. More than 1,000 people sought medical treatment after slipping
on the streets over the next few days.
The local authorities blamed the “unique
weather” for their inability to clear paths.
Kyiv’s housing
and utility agencies, for example, posted numerous warning signs with the
following messages: “Cautious! Snow and ice is falling from the roof,”
“Dangerous for life!” “In case of damage to cars, the local building-utilities
administrator is not responsible.”
Contrary to
the signs, Anna Ogrenchuk, managing partner at Kyiv’s LCF LAW GROUP, said that “in
fact, the local housing-utilities administrator is responsible. According to
the rules adopted by the Kyiv City Council, the owner of a building or other
entity which keeps the building on its balance, should remove snow and icicles from
roofs immediately and remove them from the pavement in 24 hours.”
The same
rules say that hazardous pavement areas should be enclosed only when such work as
snow removal is being carried out. Ogrenchuk added that fencing an area on the
sidewalk with red-and-white ribbons for weeks on end – a practice widely used
this winter – is unacceptable. The warning tape forces passersby to walk on the
streets alongside cars.
But if
concerned residents have can afford a few extra thousand hryvnias to pay a lawyer,
including months of time, they can sue their local housing-utilities
administration for not performing its snow removal duties. But there is no
guarantee that the court will satisfy their claim.
“Can you
imagine, today you file a lawsuit to make the utility office knock down icicles
and in a week all the snow and ice melts,” said Arseniy Miliutin, senior lawyer
at Egorov Puginsky
Afanasiev & Partners. “It’s a funny situation but quite real. The court will have all the
grounds to dismiss the claim.”
Even if the
court orders the snow and ice removed, enforcement remains a problem, said Ogrenchuk
from LCF LAW GROUP. She says that heads of utility offices who do not execute
court rulings should be put behind bars.
However, lawyers
can be much more helpful when snow or ice injures a person or damage property. There
are cases in which car owners recovered damages. But a person has a harder time
proving that he or she slipped and broke a leg because the sidewalk wasn’t
cleared properly. To prove the causal relationship, lawyers advise to call an
attorney as soon as possible, to take pictures of the accident spot, talk to
witnesses and keep all relevant medical and repair receipts. Yet these steps
may not be enough.
More
practical alternatives to lawyers and lawsuits are fines or administrative
sanctions by local government.
“Fines for
violating rules of maintenance and cleaning buildings for officials are
insignificant and account for up to 119 hryvnias, but local authorities may
reprimand or even fire the head of the responsible utility office,” Miliutin
said.
Snow
removal improved in certain city districts after Kyiv State Administration head Olexander Popov fired three district administration
heads.
During his
recent televised question-and-answer discussion with the nation, President
Viktor Yanukovych would not address snow and ice removal in depth. “This winter
was special regarding weather conditions,” he said. “The consequences of this
winter should be taken into account in the future.”
While
authorities are considering buying new snow removal equipment and increasing
financing of the housing-utility sector before the next winter season starts,
residents should not relax.
“The rule
of law is declared in Ukraine’s constitution,” Ogrenchuk said. “But unfortunately
nobody but us will help us. We should know our rights, unite as residents of a certain
building and write claims to utility offices first and then to the city
administration before an accident occurs.”
Until housing-utility
offices remain public, not private, and it will take united efforts by
residents to force municipal employees to effectively remove snow from city
streets.
Spring
fights snow better.
Kyiv Post staff writer
Oksana Faryna can be reached at [email protected].
