The UNBA will seek to have the CPC amendments no. 5610 vetoed

The Ukrainian National Bar Association will appeal to the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko urging him to veto the draft law no. 5610 "On Amendments to the Criminal Procedural Code of Ukraine (on improvement of mechanisms for ensuring the objectives of criminal proceedings)".

As a result of adoption of this law, the international standards, which have been implemented in the Ukrainian legislation during the long reformation process, will face a real threat of destruction under the pressure of populism, radicalism and legal illiteracy. Even a cursory legal analysis witnesses that its contents do not comply with the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, to which Ukraine acceded in 1997.

The draft law contradicts the strategic documents which define the objectives and direction of reforms in the sphere of justice. In particular, the Strategy of reforming the judiciary and related legal institutions for 2015-2020 approved by Presidential Decree of 20 May 2015 sets, as one of the directions of reforms, the "improvement of procedural justice and the right to defence in criminal proceedings". On 25 August 2015 the Head of State approved the National Human Rights Strategy, which will become a set of slogans in the light of the above legislative initiatives. In fact, the CPC proposed changes crossed out the whole chapter "Ensuring the right to liberty and security". In the event of adoption of draft amendments no. 5610, a drastic change of ideology of reforms in the field of justice will take place. 

In a democratic State governed by the rule of law the attempts to turn the criminal procedural legislation into a repressive one, and the criminal proceedings into the way of prosecution and punishment, are unacceptable. Danger also lies in the fact that such changes are made for political reasons. This was stated by Mrs Lydia Izovitova, the UNBA/BCU President, in her article published in "Legal Practice".

The bar has repeatedly appealed to the Parliament urging it to prevent the adoption of this law, because it contains a real threat to the constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens of Ukraine and to the European obligations of Ukraine in the field of human rights. Legal community has publicly expressed its concerns about the fact that the draft law would lead to the destruction of humane democratic legal framework of criminal proceedings.

On 23 February 2017 the UNBA President sent an open letter to the Parliamentary Speaker Andriy Parubiy, in which she explained the dangers of return to the Soviet CPC as a result of adoption of the draft law no. 5610. On behalf of the Ukrainian bar, Mrs Izovitova urged the MPs to abandon its adoption.

In response to this letter, on 13 March 2017 the Parliamentary Committee on Legislative Support of Law Enforcement Activities stated that the UNBA position had been brought to the attention of MPs in order to be taken into account during the consideration of the draft law at second reading.

On 28 February 2017, during a meeting at the General Prosecutor's Office, the UNBA representative confirmed the position of the bar that the amendments to the CPC envisaged by the draft law no. 5610 make an unprecedented attack on European standards of human rights in Ukraine. Advocate Anzhelika Sytsko, Head of the UNBA Committee on Criminal Law and Procedure, stressed that the proposed procedure of delivering a notice of suspicion in absentia, namely through publications in the media, would launch the prosecution of ordinary citizens on fabricated charges. This position was officially communicated to the GPO management.

On 4 February 2017 the BCU issued a statement on the draft amendments to the CPC (no. 5490), whose provisions are identical to the draft law no. 5610. The bar warned that if the draft law no. 5490 is adopted, it would create conditions for elimination of professional legal assistance during the preliminary investigation. The adversarial principle would turn into a purely declarative one, as the total "domination" of the prosecution party is expected during the pre-trial proceedings. Even the very name of the draft law, "improvement of mechanisms for ensuring objectives of criminal proceedings", has nothing to do with the repressive nature of its main provisions.