The bar must respond harshly to violations of advocates rights

The reaction of the bar to violations of advocates’ rights and professional guarantees by law enforcement authorities must be harsh.

To discuss proposals for further actions in protection of advocates’ professional rights, an open meeting of the UNBA Committee on protection of advocates’ rights and professional guarantees was convened. Members of the Committee, heads of the UNBA Committees, representatives of regional bar councils and representatives of NGOs were invited to participate at the meeting.

Mrs Ganna Kolesnyk, Head of the Committee, informed that the number of advocates’ complaints increases and during eight months of this year it has already twice outnumbered the last-year figure. According to the statistics gathered by the Committee, 15 complaints were received in 2013, six complaints in 2014, 25 complaints in 2015 and 48 complaints during the first eight months of 2016.

Mr Yevgen Solodko, Deputy Head of the Committee, proposed to harshly counter such violations, given that the leadership of law enforcement authorities does not give them an adequate assessment and does not make any efforts to remedy the situation. In particular, he urged advocates to leave public councils of law enforcement authorities, since their presence in those councils is purely nominal.

Mr Solodko proposed to harshly respond to violations of advocates’ rights. "If we are led to the point where it is proposed to give the regulation of the profession to the Ministry of Justice, and to deprive us of freedom and independence, we can resist those attempts only by a joint effort", - said Mr Solodko. 

In particular, he suggested that advocates should leave public councils of law enforcement authorities, since their voices are ignored there. He also proposed to hold advocates’ warning strike for three days. Mr Solodko expressed concern that the attack on advocates’ rights may lead to the destruction of the bar self-government and independence of the profession. He also proposed to invite the President of Ukraine to the BCU extraordinary meeting in order to inform him about violations of advocates’ rights by the police.

In addition, during the meeting the participants discussed the need to bring information about a violation of advocates’ rights to the attention of international partners and to invite observers from the CCBE and IBA for a direct fixation of such violations.