O. M. Korniyenko was released from custody in the courtroom

On April 16, 2019, the Malynovsky District Court of Odessa agreed with the position of the defense attorney, D. V. Ponomarenko, a partner at Barristers LLP, D. V. Ponomarenko, and, by its ruling, denied the prosecutor’s motion to extend the pretrial detention of O. M. Korniyenko, amended the charges against the defendant—who is accused of committing the crimes provided for in paragraph 4 of Part 2 of Article 115, Part 3 of Article 185, Part 3 of Article 15, and paragraph 13 of Part 2 of Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, from pretrial detention to round-the-clock house arrest.

There was also one previous judgment in this case—the judgment of the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi City and District Court of Odesa Oblast dated September 26, 2017, in which O. M. Kornienko was sentenced to life imprisonment.

On October 18, 2018, after nearly a year of appellate proceedings, the Odesa Regional Court of Appeals, by its ruling, overturned the aforementioned judgment of the Bilhorod-Dnistrovsky City and District Court of the Odesa Region dated September 26, 2017, due to substantial violations of the law, although it could have conducted a new examination of all the circumstances of the case, thereby expediting a decision on the merits. The case was remanded to the local court for a new trial.

On December 6, 2018, the European Court of Human Rights issued a judgment in the case of “Vega and Others v. Ukraine” (“VEGA AND OTHERS v. UKRAINE”) (http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-187935). The judgment covers a number of applications filed with the ECHR, including Application No. 37514/17 concerning the aforementioned restrictions on the rights of O.M. Korniyenko as a defendant in this criminal case. In its judgment, the ECHR noted that the applicants complained both about the excessive length of the criminal proceedings and the lack of an effective legal remedy under domestic law. Taking into account its own case law, the European Court of Human Rights recognized in its judgment that the applicants, in particular O.M. Korniyenko in this criminal case, under the aforementioned circumstances, did not have at their disposal an effective legal remedy, and that the duration of the proceedings against them, in particular with respect to O.M. Kornienko, was excessive and did not meet the “reasonable time” requirement, which constituted a violation by Ukraine of Article 6(1) and Article 13 of the Convention