Lawyer helped to obtain a death certificate for a loved one

As is well known, state registration of a person's death is carried out by civil registry offices at the request of the deceased's relatives and friends. As a rule, the fact of death is reported upon the fact of the application.

However, there are cases when the state registration of death is carried out at the request of other persons, in particular, the administration of the healthcare facility where the person died. At the same time, this circumstance does not prevent relatives or friends from obtaining a state-issued death certificate.

Thus, Ms. Yulia turned to the lawyer of the Kovel Legal Aid Bureau, whose work is supported by DRC. In the spring of 2022, the woman, along with her family and grandmother, was forced to leave the city of Volnovakha in Donetsk Oblast.

During the evacuation, Yulia's grandmother's health deteriorated significantly and she needed emergency medical care, so the family decided to leave the old woman until her health stabilized at the Pokrovska Clinical Hospital for Intensive Care (Donetsk Oblast).

Meanwhile, Yulia planned to find a temporary shelter in western Ukraine, where she wanted to move her sick grandmother. However, the old woman died in the hospital a few days later. The woman was unable to bury the deceased and properly register her death, so Ms. Yulia did not receive a death certificate for her grandmother. In addition, the absence of a death certificate was an objective obstacle to receiving the inheritance.

After examining the circumstances of the case, the lawyer found an out-of-court solution to the legal problem that did not require Ms. Yulia's personal appeal to the Pokrovska Hospital. In particular, the Instruction on filling out and issuing a medical death certificate (form No. 106/о), approved by the Order of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine No. 545 dated 08.08.2006, stipulates that in case of burial of the deceased by a health care facility, the latter must fill out a medical death certificate and submit it to the civil registry office no later than three days from the date of death.

Thus, the lawyer provided administrative support to Ms. Yulia in obtaining a state-issued death certificate for her grandmother, which subsequently enabled the woman to exercise her inheritance and related rights.

The free legal aid was provided in cooperation of the Western Interregional Center for Free Legal Aid with the Danish Refugee Council and funded by the European Union's civil protection and humanitarian aid.