By KYIV. Sept 4 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Detectives and prosecutors should reconsider their approaches to work and send indictments to the court with a margin of time, when there is a slight statute of limitations in a criminal offense, Head of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) Vira Mykhailenko has said.
In an interview with Interfax-Ukraine, speaking about the tendency for courts to close cases on false declarations, Mykhailenko said out of 17 cases of this category, for which the statute of limitations expired in March and April 2023, only five entered HACC at the end of 2022, the rest – already in 2023.
“The court should consider these cases in the same way as others, that is, in a court session with a full study of the evidence presented by the parties. Indeed, two to three months may not be enough for the trial of the case, the pretrial investigation of which was carried out for a year and a half,” she said.
According to Mykhailenko, the current legislation provides for the closure of criminal proceedings as one of the forms for its completion.
“Criminal proceedings are closed with the release of a person from criminal liability, if the statute of limitations has expired from the day he committed a criminal offense (in this case, two years). This is a legislative requirement, and everyone must comply with it,” the head of the court said.
As Mykhailenko noted, it is also important to form judicial practice, develop approaches to the consideration of cases of this category, since the legislation governing declarations is not always clear and definite.
“That is, the closure of cases on false declarations is also a result: detectives and prosecutors must reconsider their approaches and send indictments to the court with a large margin of time, and the subjects of declarations should be more responsible in submitting information in declarations,” the head of the court said.
