Thanks to the efforts of Ivanna Blokhina and Yulia Goncharenko, attorneys at Barristers LLC, the prosecutor’s appeal was dismissed, and the ruling of the court of first instance—which had dismissed the criminal proceedings under Part 2 of Article 345-1 and Part 1 of Article 130 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine on the basis of Subparagraph 9-1 of Part 1 and Part 7 of Article 284 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine—was upheld

This case is landmark in shaping the relevant case law and is of interest for the following reasons.

In this criminal proceeding, attorneys from Barristers Law Firm began representing the defendant during the trial itself.

At the very first court hearing, following the court’s approval of a motion filed by the defense, the prosecution was ordered to provide the new defense attorney with all materials from the pretrial investigation for review and to allow the attorney to make copies of them. Upon reviewing these materials, it was discovered that there was an unrepealed order by the investigator to close this very same criminal proceeding regarding the exact same act.

Consequently, at the next court hearing, the defense immediately filed a motion to dismiss this criminal proceeding on the grounds provided for in paragraph 9-1 of Part 1 and Part 7 of Article 284 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine.

The prosecution’s grounds for objection boiled down to the fact that the aforementioned order concerned only the dismissal of the criminal proceedings with respect to one legal classification, while the proceedings regarding the other classification had been referred to court.

However, despite the fact that this is not provided for by the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine, the prosecution was unable to explain why, when closing “criminal proceedings due to the absence of a criminal offense” (without specifying any articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in the operative part), the reasoning section of the ruling set forth articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and the factual circumstances of the indictment that was under consideration by the court.

Thus, on August 13, 2021, by a ruling of Judge L. V. Gaeva of the Primorsky District Court of Odessa in Case No. 522/5715/20, 1-kp/522/206/21, the motion filed by Ivanna Blokhina, an attorney with the law firm “Barristers,” was granted, and the criminal proceedings under Part 2 of Article 345-1, Part 1 of Article 130 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, on the basis of Paragraph 9-1 of Part 1 and Part 7 of Article 284 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, due to the existence of an unrevoked order by the investigator to close the criminal proceedings on the grounds that - the absence of a criminal offense having been established (paragraph 2 of Part 1 of Article 284 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine) in criminal proceedings concerning the same act, which was investigated in compliance with the requirements regarding jurisdiction.

On November 24, 2021, by a ruling of the judges of the Odesa Court of Appeals—composed of R. I. Kotelevsky, O. V. Kopitsa, and O. O. Tolkachenko—the aforementioned ruling was upheld.

 Thus, in this case, the defense’s timely, correct, and clear legal position proved effective, and such fair and lawful court decisions inspire us give us strength and motivation to move forward, using all means provided by law to protect the rights and legitimate interests of those who need it.

With faith in God and knowledge of the law!