Barring Access to Court Rulings – Another Way to Step Up Pressure on Business

On May 23, 2024, on the third year of the full-scale invasion of Russia and martial law, 250 people's deputies voted in the first reading for draft law No. 7033-d “On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine on Preventing the Disclosure of Certain Information in the Texts of Court Decisions.”

The said draft law has already been the subject of public attention and concerns of the business environment since March 2023. Unfortunately, rightly so.

What is the main purpose of the bill

According to the Procedure for maintaining the Unified State Register of Court Decisions, a significant number of people have access to it, namely all judges, court staff, members and authorized employees of the secretariat of the High Council of Justice, the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine, the State Judicial Administration, the National Agency for Corruption Prevention, the National Asset Recovery and Management Agency of Ukraine, as well as authorized employees of the Prosecutor General's Office and all law enforcement agencies, from the police to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the State Bureau of Investigation and their territorial units.

Therefore, in case of mutual mistrust, when an early warning about a search can lead to the destruction of evidence in criminal proceedings, people's deputies seek to limit such access for these persons as well, which seems logical. But there is one caveat: they want to limit public access to the decisions that denied the law enforcement officers permission to conduct such a search because the law prohibits re-lodging such requests.

In addition, they also intend to classify the decrees on the seizure of property and temporary access to items and documents, as well as on the refusal to grant such requests, which would show what these law enforcement officers are doing. This will be discussed in more detail below.

The second goal is to limit, for reasons of security, general access to court decisions in criminal proceedings against persons suspected or accused of committing criminal offenses against the foundations of national security, conscription and mobilization or against the established order of military service in the sphere of protection of state secrets and inviolability of state borders, for the period of martial law and for a year after its end. Moreover, this is explained by the fact that the position, place of work and circumstances of the crime, which will pose a threat to national security, will appear in the register, and we will also put a special emphasis on this.

The draft law also proposes to limit the publication in the texts of court decisions open to public access:

• of the names of military administration bodies, military units, institutions and educational units of higher education;
• of the names of entities that are part of the defense-industrial complex of Ukraine;
• of the addresses and names of critical infrastructure objects;
• of the addresses and names of state-owned entities that are of critical importance for the defense-industrial complex of Ukraine.

Regarding this approach, everything is very logical. There are no conscious people who would not support this idea. Why give the enemy information about where to direct drones or missiles? There are only two questions: why was this provision not the main thing and why did the legislators mention it so late?

How law enforcement officers can and will abuse these provisions

First of all, let's remember that, after the introduction of martial law, lawyers, human rights defenders and business associations have not seen such a significant pressure on businesses from all law enforcement agencies, except NABU, for a very long time.

Employees of the Security Service of Ukraine, who very often participated in almost all criminal proceedings on the basis of instructions from police investigators and the Bureau of Economic Security, did not stand aloof either. The pressure exceeded all limits, and the last straw was the Mazepa case. As it turns out, however, they want to create even more such cases.

The provision on limiting access to court decisions on permission to search a person's home or other property, access to decisions on seizure of property and temporary access to items and documents, as well as on refusal to grant such requests is disproportionate, does not meet the purpose of such decisions and violates the right of the person to protection, particularly from arbitrary interference with private life, and the right to entrepreneurial activity.

Open access to the register of court decisions has hindered and will hinder dishonest law enforcement officers who are used to violating the investigation in their criminal proceedings and nightmarizing businessmen and wealthy people. Under the guise of “circumstances of the crime that pose a threat to national security,” they still seek to engage in economic crimes in a biased way, violating the investigation, so that no one sees it, even a year after the war.

There are a significant number of criminal proceedings where wealthy businessmen are accused of collaborating with the enemy based on interrogation by an employee of the Security Service of Ukraine. Then everything becomes very simple: property and bank accounts are seized, suspects are put in pre-trial detention centers, and then so-called negotiations are held.

Even in the open register, there are already hundreds of such stories that will obviously not stand up in any court and obviously no one is going to submit these cases there.

In addition, some of the cases under the jurisdiction of this extremely powerful body are of public interest because they concern public and high-ranking officials, including law enforcement agencies that worked in the interests of Russia. Hiding information about such persons contributes to the feeling of impunity as the society will not be properly informed about the just punishment for them.

There is no distrust of law enforcement agencies, and that is why it is possible to put such a significant guise in their activities? Why, instead of solving the issue by increasing the discipline of these persons, does someone want to let dishonest law enforcement officers loose? Against this background, the statement of Deputy Prosecutor General D. Verbytskyi about the creation of a dashboard with data from the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations regarding cases against businesses looks like a literal mockery.

Since the deputies have to consider this law in the second reading, there is still time to introduce amendments that would make it impossible to increase the pressure on businesses to comply with the norms that are necessary to strengthen national security. There is still time to motivate law enforcement officers to transparent activities.

Read this article in Ukrainian and russian.