The Supreme Court will determine when the state can appeal an illegal special permit for the use of subsoil.

The Supreme Court will consider an issue that may significantly affect the practice of appealing illegally issued special permits for the use of subsoil. The panel of judges of the Cassation Economic Court referred to the Joint Chamber of the Supreme Court of the Kyrgyz Republic the case No. 910/18114/23, which concerns the legality of the sale of a special permit for the extraction of sand in protected drinking water intake zones.

The key legal issue is to determine the moment from which the state’s right to judicial protection arises. The court must decide whether the issuance of an illegal special permit is already a violation of state interests, or the prosecutor can apply to the court only after the actual use of subsoil or the conduct of mining operations has begun.

Previously, judicial practice was based on the fact that the violation of the state’s interests has not yet occurred before the registration of rights to the land plot and the start of mining. At the same time, the panel of judges expressed doubts about the correctness of such an approach.

According to the judges, the legality of a transaction should be assessed precisely at the moment of its commission. Therefore, an illegally issued special permit may be a basis for judicial protection even before the start of any work, as this will prevent the emergence and development of illegal legal relations.

It is expected that the future legal position of the Joint Chamber of the Economic Court of Cassation will determine whether appealing special permits will become an effective preventive mechanism for protecting state interests after the auction and issuance of the permit, without the need to wait for the start of mineral extraction.