Lawyer named 5 common problems in protection proceedings in corruption crimes

In an effort to solve a crime, law enforcement agencies often resort to actions that are on the verge of law. Problems with the suspect that appear in connection with this, the lawyer has to solve within the framework of the legal field. However, with certain experience and knowledges, the manipulations of the prosecution can be turned to the benefit of the client.

Andriy Trigub, an associate partner of Skliarenko, Sydorenko and Partners, told about key problems of protection in criminal proceedings on corruption crimes during a speech at a training course for 360 Ukrainian lawyers, which recently took place in Chernigiv.

The expert identified five typical problems, the main of which, in his opinion, is provocation of a crime.

The lawyer recalled that inciting a person to accept an unlawful benefit (in order to later expose the bribe taker) constitutes the objective side of the crime under Art. 370 of the Criminal Code. And for law enforcement officials responsibility for such a provocation reaches seven years of imprisonment. That is why the provocation is disguised as a voluntary message by a citizen (in fact, an agent or a trustee) to provide illegal benefits with the subsequent release of that person from criminal responsibility on the basis of Part 5 of Art. 354 of the Criminal Code.

“In order to prevent arbitrariness, the practice of the European Court of Human Rights has developed certain guarantees, within which the methods used by law enforcement officers must remain. - noted A.Trigub. The court in Strasbourg has repeatedly reported that the use of secret forces and means to combat crimes requires clear and adequate procedural guarantees of admissibility. At the same time, public need cannot justify the use of evidence obtained as a result of a provocation. ” As examples, the lawyer mentioned the decisions in the cases of “Teixeira de Castro vs Portugal”, “Nosko and Nefedov vs Russia”, “Chokhonelidze vs Georgia”.

The expert also recalled the main criterion for the qualification of provocation in such cases: if before the use of covert means the person had not committed unlawful actions, the measures taken by the law enforcement officers indicate a compulsion to commit a crime, because without external intervention the crime could not have taken place.

In addition to provocation of a crime, according to A.Trigub, typical problems of providing legal assistance in proceedings on corruption crimes are connected with such factors as:

- limited capacity of refuting the results of undercover investigative search operations;

- “abuse” of applying such a preventive measure as detention with an excessively large amount of bail;

- the use of pseudo-participation (when the prosecution contains formulations like “committed in collusion with unidentified persons”);

- “waste” factual data available in the case file, which only create the appearance of an objective investigation, however, are difficult to understand.