How the High Anti-Corruption Court distorts ECHR case law, lawyer's opinion
Lawyer explained how the High Anti-Corruption Court distorts the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (photo: RBC-Ukraine)
The High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) distorts the case law of the European Сourt of Human Rights (ECHR), effectively undermining both the legal assistance provided by defense attorneys and fundamental human rights, according to Semen Khanin, an honored lawyer of Ukraine and a board member of the Ukrainian Bar Association.
"The HACC undermines both the legal assistance of defenders and human rights. Investigating judges distort the case law of the ECHR: they, together with HACC, claim that in the absence of a 100% alibi, 'the person in question could have committed the offense", Khanin wrote.
According to him, the HACC investigating judges consider all evidence presented by the prosecution to be inherently valid, admissible, and credible. In contrast, they disregard the evidence and arguments of the defense, treating them as irrelevant at the stage of choosing a preventive measure, the well-known lawyer pointed out.
He also emphasized that the HACC investigating judges have turned the process of establishing the validity of suspicion in the pre-trial investigation into a farce.
It is worth recalling that the European Commission previously stated that the High Anti-Corruption Court is becoming increasingly dependent on the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP), which systematically violate constitutional human rights.
Additionally, lawyer Taras Baranov accused the NABU of siding with the SAP prosecutors.
