Another way to increase pressure on business is to close information on court decisions

Open access to the register of court decisions has interfered and will continue to interfere with dishonest law enforcement officers who are accustomed to violating jurisdiction in their criminal proceedings and “nightmare” businessmen and wealthy people.

In the third year of the full-scale Russian invasion and martial law, on May 23, 2024, 250 people’s deputies voted in the first reading for bill No. 7033-d “On amendments to certain laws of Ukraine regarding the prevention of disclosure of certain information in the texts of court decisions.”

This bill has already been the subject of publicity and concern of the business environment since March 2023. Unfortunately, not without reason.

What is the main purpose of the bill

According to the Procedure for maintaining the Unified State Register of Judicial Decisions, a significant number of persons have access to it - all judges, court employees, 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 the Prevention of Corruption, the National agencies of Ukraine on the identification, search and management of assets, as well as authorized employees of the Office of the Prosecutor General and all law enforcement agencies, from the police to the Nazi

So, in the case of distrust of each other, when advance warning of a search can lead to the destruction of evidence in criminal proceedings, people’s deputies want to limit such access for these individuals, which seems logical. But there is one thing: they want to limit general access to the decisions by which law enforcement officers were denied permission to conduct such a search, because the law prohibits making such requests again.

Moreover, they also want to classify the decisions on the seizure of property and temporary access to things and documents, as well as on the refusal to satisfy such requests, which would show what these law enforcement officers are doing, which will be discussed below.

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

The bill also proposes to limit the publication in texts of court decisions open to the public:

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

Regarding this approach, everything is very logical. There are no conscious people who would not support this idea - why provide the enemy with information about where to send drones or missiles? There are only two questions: why was this provision not the main one and why did legislators remember it so late?

How law enforcement can and will abuse these provisions

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

SBU employees did not stand aside either, who very often participated in almost all criminal proceedings on the basis of instructions from police investigators and the Bureau of Economic Security. The pressure went beyond all limits, and the final straw was the “Mazepa case,” but, as it turns out, they want to create even more such cases.

The provision restricting access to court decisions on permission to search a person’s home or other possession, access to decisions on the seizure of property and temporary access to things and documents, as well as the refusal to satisfy such requests is disproportionate, does not correspond to the purpose of such decisions and violates the law persons to protection, including from arbitrary interference in private life, and the right to entrepreneurial activity.

Open access to the register of court decisions has interfered and will continue to interfere with dishonest law enforcement officers who are accustomed to violating jurisdiction in their criminal proceedings and “nightmare” businessmen and wealthy people. Under the guise of “circumstances of the crime that pose a threat to national security,” they want to continue to deal with economic crimes in a biased manner, violating the jurisdiction so that no one sees it, even a year after the war.

There are a significant number of criminal proceedings where wealthy businessmen, based on interrogation by an SBU officer, are accused of collaborating with the enemy. Then everything is very simple - property and accounts are seized, suspects are put in pre-trial detention, and then so-called negotiations are held.

Even in the open register there are already hundreds of such stories that will obviously fall apart in any court and obviously no one is going to transfer these cases there.

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

There is no mistrust in law enforcement agencies, and therefore it is possible to put such a significant screen in their activities? Why, instead of resolving the issue at the level of increasing the discipline of these individuals, does someone want to give dishonest law enforcement officers a free hand? Against this background, the statement of Deputy Prosecutor General D. Verbitsky about the creation of a dashboard with data from the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations (URDR) in cases against business looks literally mocking.

Since deputies must consider this law in the second reading, there is still time to introduce amendments that would make it impossible to increase pressure on businesses for complying with the standards necessary to strengthen state security. There is still time to motivate law enforcement officers to operate transparently.