Bolhrad judge's lawyers failed to persuade court to close corruption case

The High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine refused to satisfy the motion of the lawyers of judge Serhiy Vysotskyi of the Bolhradskyi District Court of Odesa Region to close the criminal proceedings against him.

According to the Center for Public Investigations, in the court's ruling, Vysotsky's defense counsel insisted that the prosecutor had missed the deadline for filing an indictment with the court. He argued that the judge was notified of the suspicion on February 9, and the investigation was completed on April 1. The pre-trial investigation was not extended, and no decision was made to suspend the pre-trial investigation. Thus, on April 2, the pre-trial investigation term was suspended, with eight calendar days of the pre-trial investigation term remaining unused. Subsequently, on June 12, the defense informed the prosecutors that they had familiarized themselves with the case file.

Thus, according to the defense counsel, the pre-trial investigation term resumed and, accordingly, the final date of expiration of the pre-trial investigation term in the criminal proceedings is June 20, i.e. eight days after June 12. However, the indictment was drawn up by the detective and approved by the prosecutor only on June 21, and then on June 24, the indictment was handed over to the suspect and his defense counsel, and on June 25, the indictment with annexes was submitted to the High Anti-Corruption Court.

In these circumstances, according to the defense counsel, the prosecutor filed an indictment with the court outside the pre-trial investigation period, which is grounds for closing the criminal proceedings.

In his objections to the court, the prosecutor emphasized that the defense counsel's motion was unfounded and groundless, and therefore requested that it be dismissed. He noted that the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor' s Office had indeed received an email containing a number of attachments, including several files with different names, but with the same content, with the title "Notification of the defense party on the opening of materials in accordance with Article 290 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine". The letter was registered on June 13 in the Electronic Document Management System of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. Among a large list of documents, without any logic in the presentation of the letter, without forming paragraphs, without any logic in the presentation of the text, practically in one array, on five sheets it was stated that the defense also confirms the opening of pre-trial investigation materials and the exercise of its right in accordance with part nine of Article 290 of the CPC of Ukraine.

The prosecutor noted that in this way, the defense obviously acted not to confirm to the prosecutor that it had been granted access to the materials, but to mislead him and to further claim that the pre-trial investigation had ended at the time of sending the indictment to the court. According to the prosecutor, this indicates the defense's dishonest behavior. In addition, the prosecutor added that the defense counsel sent e-mails rather than written confirmations of the fact that the defense had been granted access to the materials, thus failing to comply with the requirements of Article 290(9) of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine.

At the same time, the prosecutor emphasized that the stage of fulfilling the requirements of Article 290 of the CPC of Ukraine lasted until June 20, i.e. the deadline after which, according to the decision of the HACC investigating judge of May 30, the defense party to the criminal proceedings is considered to have exercised its right to access the pre-trial investigation materials. Thus, at the time the indictment in this case was sent to court, the pre-trial investigation had not expired.

Кирило Бойко