The remand in custody as a preventive measure – is this a necessity or a leverage?

Why does the pretrial investigation agency in case of grave and the gravest crimes ask to apply to suspects the exceptional preventive measure of remand in custody? What is the purpose of such an application? Is this a post-Soviet statistical requirement, or a leverage to influence suspects? I suggest that you hunt down the question.

After the arrest and service of an apprehension notice to a person, an interesting thing happens – the interrogation of a person as a suspect. This procedural action is accompanied by certain threats on the part of the investigator. In 90% of the cases, investigators offer suspects to reveal incriminating testimony against themselves and/or others, thus promising he/she will go home but not to TCC (Temporary Containment Cell). Undoubtedly, the detained person is stressed out, it is not so difficult to press the case, but the problem lies elsewhere. When the person testifies as required by the investigator, he/she gets behind the bars, and the investigator together with the prosecutor celebrate their first victory. They have achieved their goal, and tomorrow, this interrogation protocol will be the basis for a petition to use remand in custody as a preventive measure and will be shown to the investigating judge as the proof of the suspect’s guilt. There is a dead-ender – why the "reformed" staff of the National Police, the newly established NABU and their procedural executives from the prosecutor's office apply for this kind of practice? This is just one example that can be drawn from practice, of course in this category of cases. The presence of defence attorney is mandatory during the performance of such a procedural actionand for preventing the progression of events.

Why then the prosecution appeals to the court to use remand in custody as a preventive measure, if the suspect's guilt has not been proven, and considering the presumption of innocence, the proof should be carried out by the prosecution; the justification of the suspicion without risks cannot be the reason for the preventive measure application, and it is also necessary to convince the court that an alternative precautionary measure cannot be applied?

The prosecutor's reference to the gravity of the incriminated crime without other circumstances specified from the point of view of the defense usually falls on deaf ears of the court.

What such efforts were for since as a rule the prosecution during the hearing of a petition to use remand in custody as a preventive measure merely lists the risks and in no way confirms them with the available materials attached to the petition? The answer is right there  – it is easy to manipulate with the person under such an exceptional precautionary measure, restricting the right to communicate with relatives, freedom of movement. This person is in a constant state of depression.

Practicing defence attorneys constantly face the problems of appealing such judgments of the court of the first instance. After the petition is appealed, the prosecution representative ceases to work with this criminal case for some time, does not appear to the appellate court, due to the heavy workload it takes weeks for district courts to send decisions, and materials are not sent to the appellate court. All this time, a person who hasn’t even been accused of stays behind the bars receiving the hope when the prosecutor or investigator brings to him the interrogation protocol and says: “Sign, and you will leave!”

Everything I described in this article is only a small amount of the permanent confrontation, and the choice of citizens is theirs, to work with professionals who can protect them from manipulations of investigators and provide proper legal help or provide the opportunity for the prosecution to manipulate.