UNBA Committees shall apply to the international structures regarding violation of the rights of the advocates in one high-profile criminal case

The UNBA Committees will appeal to the international structures and law enforcement agencies on violation of the rights of the advocates in one high-profile criminal case.

The UNBA Committees on free legal aid and protection of the rights and guarantees of advocacy will appeal to the Council of Europe, CCBE, law enforcement bodies and people's deputies on violation of the rights of the advocates in one high-profile criminal case.

Based on the results of the joint meeting of the Committees, the resolution was adopted expressing the concern about illegal actions against the advocates Olga Prosyanyuk and Olexander Goroshinsky on the part of the law enforcement bodies, in particular, equation of the advocates with their client, interfering in advocacy. The instrument of such pressure became opening of criminal proceedings against the advocates in the Prosecutor General's Office.

The full text of the resolution will be published at the beginning of the next week.

The meeting was held in response to the appeal to the UNBA of the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy, Ruslan Knyazevych. The appeal refers to the facts of undue pressure on the advocate Ivan Angelin, reported to the profile parliamentary committee by the People's Deputy Mustafa Nayem. Ivan Angelin was attracted as a free advocate to the criminal case, in which Prosyanyuk and Goroshinsky are the defenders.

Having heard the explanations of the initiator of the appeal Mustafa Nayem, the advocates Prosyanyuk, Goroshinsky and Angelin, the representative of the Prosecutor General's Office, the director of the Coordination Center for Free Secondary Legal Aid Oleksii Bonyuk, the Committees concluded that the pressure and violation of the rights of the advocate Angelin are not supported by any legal facts. The appeal for disciplinary action against him can not be treated as a fact of pressure and considered in such interpretation by the Prosecutor General's Office in the relevant criminal proceedings against the advocates under the contract.

The Committees also ask the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada to assess the legality in this process.

Since this situation highlighted once again the problem of attracting the advocates who provide free legal aid to the high-profile criminal cases where the advocates work under the contract, the committees also decided to ask the Ministry of Justice to initiate clarifications in the relevant resolutions of the Cabinet of Ministers .