Nothing is worse than a case that drags on in court proceedings and then gets dismissed after the statute of limitations expires.
Ten years ago, on November 30, a peaceful student rally took place in support of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union. That day, in the evening, the Berkut special forces dispersed the Euromaidan protesters. And on December 1, people from different parts of Ukraine began to gather on the Maidan to support the protest not only against the rejection of European integration, but also against the actions of the security forces and the Yanukovych regime.
In the following months, events took place on Maidan that changed the course of Ukrainian history. The crimes committed during the Revolution of Dignity were called “Maidan affairs.” Today the prosecutor’s office says that the investigation into the “Maidan cases” is already at the finish line. When society will be able to hear the verdicts and whether it will be possible to satisfy the citizens’ request for justice, Alexey Donskoy, head of the Department for Maidan Affairs of the Office of the Prosecutor General, spoke about this in an interview with Ukrainian Radio.
According to him, there are still no verdicts in 50 “Maidan cases” where the statute of limitations has expired. At the same time, the Office of the Prosecutor General is maintaining public charges against more than 280 people in 138 cases. Donskoy notes: “There is no risk that the statute of limitations will expire in cases involving the previous leadership of the state. After all, the persons are wanted and have been charged with especially serious crimes, for which punishment is provided in the form of life imprisonment.”
“There are still no verdicts in 50 cases where the statute of limitations has expired”
- Ten years have passed for the “Maidan cases.” How many cases today are subject to the statute of limitations?
— About 50 cases where the statute of limitations expires. We are talking about the period from November 30, 2023 to February 20, 2024. Last year they said that there were about 60 such cases. There are 12 verdicts this year. That is, in some cases, including those up to November 30, such sentences were passed. Another thing is that they have not yet entered into legal force, and there will obviously be an appeal review procedure. That is, in a certain way, this number of cases where the deadline has recently expired has decreased, but we believe that it remains quite significant.
“The law makes it possible to delay the consideration of cases; the corresponding changes have not been adopted”
- Why are there so many of them? Why are there still no verdicts against them?
— The main reason is the significant length of the trial, where we are talking about failure to comply with reasonable deadlines. These are cases sent to court, for example, in 2015-2016. And the reasons are different, but the main one is that the Criminal Procedure Code, which should be a guard against abuses from the actions of participants in criminal proceedings in the process, is not a guard, but on the contrary, it tolerates such violations and allows the use of delaying the trial as an element of lawyer tactics. And this leads to the fact that productions that are not complex in their characteristics and volume can last for years.
Among the reasons is the workload on judges, because each individual case needs to be considered. Also, on the part of judges, we can observe a violation of reasonable deadlines for assigning cases, when a case is assigned once every six months, once a year. This is a legislative problem.
The legislator should clearly state the period within which the case should be considered. Or when the statute of limitations expires, the court is required to schedule hearings several times a week. But this is not in the law, these are proposals that we made, but legislators have not yet voted for such a bill. Consequently, delays either by the courts or by the defense are derived from the fact that it is the law that provides such opportunities.
– By the way, why weren’t the changes made by legislators? Did the prosecutor's office make recommendations that it would be worth voting?
— We had meetings in the relevant committee. This story is not new. We initiated this issue in 2020-2021. There was a bill that the Verkhovna Rada worked on, taking into account our proposals. And in the first reading he voted three days before the start of a full-scale war.
But our position was not fully taken into account there, but if at least in this form this law had come into force, it would have helped us a lot not only in the “Maidan affairs”, but in general in everything, because it would have encouraged us to comply with reasonable deadlines.
But, unfortunately, a full-scale war began and this law remained adopted in the first reading. Now there is a bill in the Verkhovna Rada committee, which takes into account our proposals both on preparatory proceedings and on the timing of the trial, but even if it is adopted, it will not help these cases.
If we take only November 30, that is, there are 7 sentences against 9 people for these events, six people were sentenced to actual terms of imprisonment. These are law enforcement officers who directly used force against protesters. At the same time, of these sentences, only two sentences came into force against three people. And out of 7 sentences for the events of November 2013, 5 were handed down only in 2023.
If cases had been considered at this rate in previous years, they would obviously have had a completely different number of verdicts. And, in particular, 20 cases where there is a statute of limitations and where there is a risk that they will end, relate specifically to the events of November 30th. That is, if these cases were heard at this pace, there would be much more sentences.
- Why did they take so long to consider? Why was it postponed until the last year, when the deadline was about to expire?
— The main problem was the violation of reasonable deadlines. Moreover, not a single meeting was disrupted by the prosecutor in these cases. There were abuses by the defense. There have been cases when meetings were disrupted because the defense attorney was busy at another meeting; sometimes there could be several months without a meeting.
We responded with the means that prosecutors have. For example, they submitted a motion to comply with reasonable time limits for the trial. In cases where such violations were already of an overt systemic nature, complaints were submitted against judges to the High Council of Justice. And before the renewal of the PSA, more than fifty complaints were filed, but only one was considered, on which a decision was made that the judge had violated the law. The rest of the complaints were either left without consideration at all, or they were denied to us. And all these factors led to this state.
— How many “Maidan cases” are currently being considered in the courts?
— If we take all the events, then the prosecutors of the Office of the Prosecutor General support public charges against more than 280 people in 138 cases. Not all cases have a risk of expiration of the statute of limitations. There are just over 50 of them. Other cases do not have such a risk, because these are either cases of especially serious crimes, or cases where the running of the statute of limitations was interrupted or interrupted due to concealment at the stage of investigation of the suspect or accused at the stage of trial. If we take the killings of protest participants, then there is no risk of expiration of deadlines. The same applies to any case against officials who are wanted.
“There was no cooperation from Interpol in cases of high-ranking officials and law enforcement officers”
- How many cases of especially serious crimes are being considered now? And so you say that the statute of limitations also does not expire in those cases where the accused do not appear. How many people?
— As for the number of such cases, where we are talking about especially serious crimes, where a person is hiding, it’s about 90 cases. Basically, persons are hiding either on the territory of the aggressor state or in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Unfortunately, there was no cooperation from Interpol in cases of high-ranking officials and law enforcement officers.
Partially there was cooperation against civilians, the so-called “titushki”, in violent crimes. But with regard to law enforcement officers and former leaders of the state, Interpol’s position is that this is not a political crime, but a crime with a political component.
That is, it turns out that this may be a general criminal offense, but if it is related to political events in the state, then Interpol cannot carry out international search measures. That is, we carry out international search in a different way. There are certain stages of this search.
That is, in order for the fact of an international search to be confirmed, it is enough for us to make a personal decision about it and send it for execution, so that it is accepted for execution, at least in some countries.
That is, if, for example, an official or other person is located on the territory of the Russian Federation, we still have reason to assume that this person may someday enter the territory of another state. Therefore, we can send a tracing request to, for example, a country in the European Union. And this country accepts our request, which is confirmation that an international search for this person is underway.
“There is no risk that the statute of limitations will expire in cases involving the former leadership of the state”
- The case of the former leadership of the state has now been sent to court. When will preparatory meetings begin? And in general, can the statute of limitations expire?
— The statute of limitations cannot expire for two reasons. Firstly, the persons are wanted, that is, hiding from the investigation. Secondly, they have been charged with especially serious crimes, for which punishment is provided in the form of life imprisonment. And such cases have no statute of limitations.
The pre-trial investigation into this case was completed back in 2021. And then the requirements of Article 290 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine were fulfilled. That is, the defense of the accused continued to familiarize themselves with the case materials. Several times we have submitted a motion to limit these deadlines.
They were satisfied. That is, the fact that the case was sent to court this year corresponds to the period by which the court limited the defense lawyers to familiarize themselves with the materials. There is also an objective situation related to the volume of the case. It contains more than 1800 volumes. And actually there were two years on the defense side. Regarding when the proceedings will begin, the case is in the Shevchenko court, and we hope that a preparatory meeting will take place in the near future.
“It would be important for us that the maximum number of cases end in verdicts, whatever they may be”
- Those who suffered on the Maidan, their families and society as a whole - have all been waiting for verdicts for 10 years. How can I speed up this process?
- The mechanism for speeding up the review is the only one when the law will not rely on a conscientious judge, lawyer or prosecutor, but will simply have strict conditions regarding the timing of consideration and the actions of persons. In fact, if possible avenues of abuse are eliminated. The period of pre-trial investigation, and a limited period, is provided for by the criminal procedure law.
From the moment a person is notified of suspicion of even a particularly serious crime, the investigation cannot last more than a year. However, there are nuances regarding pre-trial proceedings that are more problematic from the point of view of the law compared to the investigation. The hearing of the case can take three years, five years. Therefore, there must be some kind of limitation period. Just like investigators, the prosecutor must commit to the deadline established by law.
Likewise, the court will have a period within which it is obliged to hear the case. The situation is different at individual stages. Where the code does not provide for deadlines at all, even for those stages where the issue of a person’s guilt is not resolved.
The stage where, for example, the question of the possibility or impossibility of assigning an indictment for consideration is decided, is the main purpose of preparatory proceedings. And in our country this preparatory proceedings can last 6-7 years for a simple case. Even the question of guilt is not resolved. There are proposals to change these norms. This would create conditions in which the tightening would be reduced to a minimum or almost completely eliminated.
This year, a verdict was rendered regarding the events in the murders on Instytutska Street on February 20, 2014. This trial was lengthy. You will not hear complaints from victims that there was some kind of delay. In terms of organizing the process, we can talk about a rough process. Meetings were scheduled several times a week. There were no breakdowns. Everyone understood the fairness of the time that needed to be spent for this process to take place. This is a big deal. There is one verdict of more than 1700 pages. How many of these one-episode cases are there? They could be reviewed in a few months. This is where the injustice lies...
- What about the security forces, against whom crimes were also committed?
- If we take the general name - crimes committed in connection with mass protests in 2013-2014, then this category includes all victims as a result of the atrocities that took place during that period. Currently, two cases are being considered against law enforcement officers. The trial is ongoing. Another person evaded the investigation and is therefore wanted. But all the circumstances of the crimes have been established, and we hope that the court will give a final assessment of these events.
- What goal do you now set for yourself in the process of investigating the “Maidan cases”? What is justice and reward for you in this matter?
- The main reward is for society to receive legal significance and answers to questions about the crimes that were committed. We can prove certain circumstances in the courts as much as we like in those cases where we have long completed the investigation, which is in court. The only one who can put a legally significant point is the court. Therefore, justice in the form of verdicts in cases is important for us, as well as for the victims. It can only be unfair to delay trials when the case does not end in verdicts.
The verdict can be either guilty or not guilty. An alternative to this is a decision on exemption from criminal liability. But this is a decision that does not answer the question: did the person commit a crime or not? It would be important for us that the maximum number of cases end in verdicts, whatever they may be. Because we can then appeal something constitutionally. But at least there is some movement.
If a case remains in court for a long time without a decision, and then is closed due to statute of limitations, this is the worst thing that can happen. As for the pre-trial investigation, the vast majority of crimes committed are solved one way or another. If we take one event and identify a certain number of persons committing crimes, then the difficulty is that many crimes were committed by groups, and we identified only a certain part of these persons.
Much has been done by law enforcement officers to hide their appearance and exclude identification. Therefore, we are talking about identifying at the level of individual perpetrators and organizers involved in the crime. But there are crimes that are still our pain because they remain unsolved. 3 of 4 murders committed on January 22, 2014: Nigoyan, Senik, Zhiznevsky. There are spots on February 18, 2014.
A significant number of law enforcement officers have been brought to justice. Civilians were also involved. But part remained unrevealed. This year we have certain results until February 18th. Two employees of the Lviv Golden Eagle received insufficient evidence to bring them to criminal responsibility specifically for murder. The investigation is ongoing. These persons are in custody.
- Will you continue to continue these three murder cases (Nigoyan, Senik, Zhiznevsky)?
- Yes, sure. There are no statutes of limitations. We will do everything possible to ensure that these crimes are solved. Our task is to continue working. And one more key point: we can hear a lot from the leadership of the aggressor country that the war is a consequence of the Maidan, that a coup d’etat took place and that Russia was forced to start a war. But we managed to establish and prove that it was exactly the opposite.
That the hybrid aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, only in another form of indirect military invasion, began in the period October-November 2013 according to the direct canons of the Gerasimov doctrine (developed by the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, it rethinks the concept of interstate conflict).
Military actions are included in the same category as political, economic, humanitarian and other non-military measures (ed.). And Maidan was precisely the response of citizens to this hybrid aggression of the Russian Federation. Unfortunately, Russia was able to use the former leadership of the Ukrainian state against Ukrainians. But it is important that in the procedural plane we were able to establish and prove the facts of the betrayal of the former leadership of the state, the consequences of which were the reaction of citizens.
