In Ukraine, there has been a Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors for many years. It exists to, among other things, punish prosecutors for violating laws and ethics.
The publication “Our Money” spent several months reading the decisions of this Commission and came to the conclusion that it was quite possible to disperse it. Not only will it not get worse, but even the opposite: the Commission will stop posing as a democratic instrument, being in fact a screen for the prosecutor's theater.
What might an ordinary person think when they first hear the abbreviation KDKP? That this is a commission of respected prosecutors, to which any citizen who has recorded the unworthy behavior of their subordinates can complain. After which there will be almost a court hearing, which will establish the truth.
Nominally, everything looks like this. But in fact, the opposite is true. We became acquainted with the real state of affairs when we started looking for complaints from entrepreneurs against prosecutors. And with great surprise we discovered that there were practically none there: literally a few cases a month. The explanation was simple: the commission never satisfies the complaints of “strays,” and entrepreneurs know this.
Sometimes, of course, the Commission punishes prosecutors, but in almost 100% of cases this happens if the complainant is the prosecutor's office itself. That is, the prosecutor-chief decided to reprimand his subordinate, submits it to the RCMP, and it already satisfies his desire. But in order to give a pinch of justice to a judge, lawyer, businessman or just an individual - this commission is not for them.
How do prosecutors do this? Very simple. They invented an algorithm that can be used for any failure. It sounds like this: we see that you came with some facts, but we will not consider them, because we do not need facts, but a decision of the court or a higher prosecutor, where it is clearly written that the prosecutor is guilty.
It sounds absurd: in order to achieve justice, it is necessary to bring a verdict that this justice has already been restored. But this is exactly the kind of absurdity that has been in effect for many years. Here are, for example, complaints to the KDKP that have occurred over the past two months.
Decision No. 858 ds-23
The lawyer filed a complaint against the prosecutors of the Solomensky District Prosecutor's Office of the city of Kyiv, Yu. Stolbovoy and Y. Kostogriz.
Reason: security forces seized property during a search in the defendant’s apartment. Only a month later (should have been 3 days - ed.) the Solomensky District Court considered the prosecutors’ petition and refused to seize the money and “yellow metal.” Despite this court decision, the prosecutor “did not return the property and funds,” but agreed with the investigator’s request to impose a new arrest for the same thing.
Reason for rejection: “the condition for opening disciplinary proceedings must be the fact of violation of the rights of individuals or the requirements of the law, individually determined by the prosecutor, established by a decision based on the results of consideration of the complaint and/or the corresponding appeal of the court to the body conducting the disciplinary proceedings…. no documentary evidence has been provided for appealing the actions of prosecutors in the manner established by the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, and the complaint itself only reflects the activities of prosecutors in criminal proceedings.”
Decision No. 814 ds-23
The Dnieper City Council filed a complaint against the prosecutor of the Office of the Prosecutor General I. Shved.
Reason: On October 26, 2022, the prosecutor appealed to the investigating judge of the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv with a request to arrest a communal land plot and real estate property. It is known from the court registry that it was, in particular, about the unfinished Parus hotel complex in the Dnieper.
In June 2023, the Kiev Court of Appeal overturned the decision of the Pechersk Court. From the appeal hearing, it became known that representatives of the mayor's office were not called to the court of first instance about the arrest of property, a copy of the resolution was not sent, they learned about the arrest six months later from the real estate register.
Despite losing the appeal, prosecutor Shved again appealed to the same court on August 21 with a similar request for arrest.
Reason for rejection: the complaint only talks about the activities of the prosecutor in criminal proceedings. But he does not provide any facts about his illegal actions. And such a fact could be a corresponding court decision. It is missing.
In addition, the complainant did not initiate the replacement of Shved in the case and did not provide specific facts about improper performance of official duties. As well as the facts that Shved discredited the title of prosecutor. After all, there is no information that, for example, he was detained drunk while driving, or that he used his position for private interests, or that he violated the laws “On the Prevention of Corruption” and “On the Prosecutor’s Office.”
Decision 597 ds-23
AIS FOOD Company LLC filed a complaint against the prosecutor of the Dnepropetrovsk regional prosecutor's office S. Francis
Reason: SBU investigators searched the company’s warehouse in Dnieper and seized food products. The food was not taken out, the warehouse was simply sealed. Mainly confectionery and sweets (among them cakes), alcoholic drinks and canned food were stored there.
The prosecutor approved the investigator's petition to the court.
A month later, the appeal court agreed that the seizure was unnecessary, canceled it and returned the goods to the owner. Although the products were physically returned only 16 days after the court decision.
The company found some of them to be overdue and went to court to recover UAH 1.9 million from the state. compensation.
Reason for rejection: there is no documentary evidence of an appeal against the actions of the prosecutor or court decisions recognizing his actions as unlawful.
Decision No. 776 ds-23
The private enterprise “Avtoservis” filed a complaint against the prosecutor of the Desnyansky District Prosecutor’s Office of the city of Kyiv N. Fedinyak.
The prosecutor filed a petition with the Desnyansky District Court to seize the land plot. It is known from the court register that we are talking about the seizure by the police of two land plots in the Muromets park. We are talking about the “Fisherman Fishing and Diving Club” in the capital’s X-Park.
A month later, the Avtoservis private enterprise lifted the arrest in the Kiev Court of Appeal.
But exactly a week later, the prosecutor again went to court with a similar request to seize the property. And on the same day the court granted it.
The company suggested that the motive for such persistent actions of the prosecutor “is pressure on the enterprise, obstruction of its economic activities for the purpose of illegal enrichment.”
Reason for rejection: there are no court decisions on the unlawful actions of Prosecutor Fedynyak, as well as no court appeal to the Committee for the Prevention of Crime against this prosecutor.
Decision No. 710 ds-23
The lawyer filed a complaint against the prosecutor of the Office of the Prosecutor General I. Chechenev
Reason: we are talking about the story of the searches of the founders of Sela Energy LLC, which “Our Money” has already written about. During an economic dispute over a gas field, the Main Investigation Department of the National Police opened criminal proceedings against the company. An investigative team of more than 20 police officers was immediately formed, to which the Office of the Prosecutor General added 8 more of its employees. Mass searches of Sela Energy and its owners immediately began.
In the house of the company's co-owner, Ivan Oleynik, cash was found in a safe. This money belonged to his father Dmitry Oleynik, who had nothing to do with the company or the investigation. Nothing was said about the money in the court order on the searches; the presence of income was confirmed by Oleynik’s declaration.
The prosecutor petitioned the capital's Pechersky District Court to seize the funds. At the same time, the prosecutor did not file applications with the court that revealed who the money actually belonged to.
The following month, the Kiev Court of Appeal overturned the arrest decision. The appeal indicated that the prosecutor did not provide sufficient and appropriate evidence of the circumstances referred to in the petition.
Reason for refusal: The traditional KDKP argument about the lack of a court decision is expanded into a philosophical concept. The decision of the appellate court, which overturned the arrest, “testifies to the exercise by the parties, within the framework of the principles of adversarial law, of the rights and powers granted by the criminal procedural law.”
The KDKP generally loves the word “competitiveness.” Was your money unfairly taken from your home? Go to court - compete. Did you compete and get your money back a few months later? So why did they come to us? Justice has triumphed.
And the KDKP also likes to quote the decision of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court N 9901/577/18 with the concept that if the senior prosecutor removed a subordinate from the case, then this is a good reason for the KDKP to punish the suspended one. This means, according to the CDC, that our verdict requires either a prosecutor’s decision or a court verdict.
What is surprising is that immediately after the favorite phrase of the Grand Chamber, the next one sounds like this:
“Consideration of the conclusion on the presence or absence of a disciplinary offense by the prosecutor occurs on the basis of adversarial proceedings. At the meeting of the Commission, explanations of the member of the Commission who conducted the inspection, explanations of the prosecutor... and, if necessary, other persons are heard (part five of Article 47 of Law No. 1697-VII).”
In other words: Both the Law and the Grand Chamber believe that “adversarial proceedings” should take place not only in court, but also within the walls of the CCCP. But prosecutors prefer not to notice this fragment of the law.
What remains for business? Handle matters as usual. “Our Money” simultaneously monitors judicial decisions that lift seizures of seized funds. And recently we came across a truly unique case, which also concerns the recent decision of the CCCP
In one 2021 land theft case, prosecutors and investigators seized $1.2 million from a safe deposit box during a search. Lawyers began going to court demanding the return of funds. We went to the investigating judges as if we were going to work: every few months we made an attempt. And there were 7 such attempts! The court always refused. The penultimate attempt occurred on May 26, 2023. Where they were refused again.
And suddenly something very unusual happened. Suddenly the lawyers decided not to wait several months, but literally two weeks later - on June 6 - they came to the same court again, and unexpectedly the court canceled the arrest. And he also noted in the resolution that the investigation “did not prove the attitude of the owner of the money to the criminal proceedings under investigation.” And for some reason the investigation also completely stopped resisting.
What higher powers prompted the lawyers to feel that this time the court would not refuse, and the investigation would not argue? An ordinary person will say - lucky, a person more advanced in such things will only smile, calculating percentages in his head. We remembered this story not only because of its non-standard nature, but also because the head of the security forces in this proceeding was prosecutor I. Chechenev - the one who seized money in one of today’s stories, and whose actions the KDKP did not even consider.
It’s just that businessmen have different ways to restore justice: free - through the KDKP - which does not work and the one that always works.
By the way, the quality of the decisions of the Commission, which confirms the punishment of a lower prosecutor by a higher prosecutor, is also not impressive. Evidence of this are dozens of court decisions that demolish such verdicts. But we will leave the analysis of this segment of the work of the KDKP for the next text.
