Expert opinion: Why do Ukrainian judges deliver so few acquittals?

For many years, the number of acquittals in Ukraine has not exceeded 1%. In 2003, this percentage was 0.24%, in 2015 – 0.94%. The number of sentences in favor of the defendants has grown fourfold, but nothing has actually changed. Ukraine is still far away from 20-30% of acquittals in Western Europe.

Chairman of the Board of Ukrainian NGO “Expert Centre for Human Rights” Yuri Belousov wrote this in a column at the Ukrayinska Pravda online newspaper.

In his article, the expert reveals the reasons for such situation and the ways to fix it.

According to him, a new Code of Criminal Procedure, adopted in 2012, should have helped to increase the number of acquittals. It stipulates that the prosecutor shall carry out the investigation and, together with the investigators, to collect evidence proving the guilt of the person and justifying him or her as well. Then an indictment shall be drawn up and submitted to the court, which must decide whether a person is guilty or not.

“However, none of the Ukrainian prosecutors want to send the case to court, if there is a chance of an acquittal. If this chance is great you can be sure that the law enforcers will do anything to ‘hush up’ the case. Why? Because the acquittal is inevitable punishment for Ukrainian prosecutors,” Belousov said.

He recalled that the Disciplinary Regulations of the Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine were approved by the relevant decision of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 1992. The Regulations stipulate that the acquittal is one of the reasons for entailing disciplinary responsibility of prosecutors and investigators.

Therefore, as soon as the court finds the suspect guilty, the prosecutor will automatically receive a reprimand at least. This means that such a person will not receive a bonus, i.e. about 30-40% of salary, for next six months.

For example, if 50% of the evidence in the case suggest that a person has committed a crime while 50% suggest that a person is innocent, no prosecutor in any region of the country will send this case to court, he will rather close it. However, a defendant could be an offender, who will remain at large and will continue committing offenses.

“If a case is not closed, a prosecutor will do everything for finding a person guilty. In course of the investigation, evidence, which justify a defendant, could be eliminated,” the expert said.

That is, such a situation acquits the guilty and punishes the innocent already at the stage of a pre-trial investigation.

To avoid this situation, the expert proposes to remove the abovementioned norm from the Regulations. “If a prosecutor delays the investigation and does not conduct the necessary investigative actions, he/she should not be automatically punished for an acquittal. The actions of such a prosecutor should be checked,” Belousov noted.

According to him, there are cases where a prosecutor is only formally involved in the investigation, not even knowing the content of the criminal proceedings and blaming the National Police investigators for everything. Such an omission does not entail any responsibility.

If a prosecutor is conducting an investigation in good faith, gathers evidence and submits them to the court, he/she is in danger of being punished. It will discourage anyone from working well.

“I hope that the new Prosecutor General will abolish this provision of the Regulations and enable the prosecutors to safely carry out their work in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure,” the expert summed up.