Sentsov’s lawyer can’t appeal to ECHR because of pledge of secrecy

The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation refused to consider complaints of the Ukrainian director and his lawyer about the provision on the secrecy of investigation.

According to the RBC media outlet, the Constitutional Court declared inadmissible the complaints of the convicted in Russia Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov, his lawyer Dmitry Dinze and lawyer Vladimir Dvoriak, unrelated to the Sentsov case.

The court ruled that the investigator shall independently decide whether the information from the pre-trial investigation might be made public. The court also noted that the case materials might contain personal information, the disclosure of which would lead to violation of the rights of citizens. The Constitutional Court judges stressed that the pledge of secrecy cannot prevent lawyers from appealing against the actions of the investigation.

The applicants challenged the provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure, giving an investigator the right to pledge the criminal case parties to secrecy. According to the lawyer of Sentsov, the pledge has prevented him from using the materials of the Sentsov’s criminal case to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. In addition, Sentsov and Dinze believe that the investigation has limited the defence in providing information to the media.

Khakassian lawyer Vladimir Dvoryak was convicted for violation of the pledge of secrecy. He was found guilty of having showed to his colleagues the criminal case materials (interrogation of witnesses) against an employee of the regional Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations department.

As a reminder, the North Caucasus military district court in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, sentenced Ukrainian director, Crimean resident Oleg Sentsov to 20 years in penal colony on charges of “terrorism”. According to the investigators and the court, the director and his accomplices plotted to blow up the monument to Lenin in Simferopol and commit a terrorist attack near the Eternal Fire Monument on May 9. Key witnesses in the case, Gennady Afanasyev and Alexei Chirny, refused to confirm their testimony in the court. Afanasyev said that he had been tortured.