How to avoid mistakes with territorial jurisdiction in criminal proceedings explained Andriy Trigub

According to Part 2 of Art. 132 of the Code of Criminal Procedure a petition for the application of measures to ensure criminal proceedings, investigators and prosecutors must submit to the local general court, within whose territorial jurisdiction there is a pre-trial investigation body. However, a number of situations have remained outside the legal regulation.

Andriy Trigub, associate partner of Skliarenko, Sydorenko and Partners, drew attention to the practical problems of territorial jurisdiction during a speech at the VIII Forum of the Ukrainian Bar Association on Criminal Law and Procedure.

In particular, to which court you should lodge a complaint about the inaction of the prosecutor if such a prosecutor is within the territorial jurisdiction of one court, and the pre-trial investigation body is in another district? "Judicial practice is inclined to the option of filing a complaint at the location of the prosecutor, but it is better to file it in both courts," the lawyer advised.

Another issue is the choice of the court to file a petition for the abolition of the arrest of property in accordance with Article 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, if the arrest was imposed by one court and the case was subsequently transferred to the pretrial investigation body in another place. In this case, according to A.Trigub, it is necessary to apply to the court at the new location of the investigators.

Separately, the expert investigated the practice of changing jurisdiction for considering applications from investigative units of the General Prosecutor's Office and the Prosecutor's Office of Kyiv.

As an example, he cited the order of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine dated July 25, 2018 No. 150, which for the first and third investigation departments of the special investigations department of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine (as pre-trial investigation bodies) determined the location of the administrative premises in the Podilsky district of Kyiv.

According to a similar principle for determining territorial jurisdiction, went Kyiv Prosecutor’s Office: the physical location of the three investigative departments of the criminal investigation department was investigated by investigators of the authorities and procedural management in the Goloseevsky, Dneprovsky and Pechersky districts.

But, such a prosecutorial position was inconsistent. After all, such pre-trial investigative bodies of the GPU as former Department for Investigation of Particularly Important Economic Cases, the Main Investigation Department and the Main Military Prosecutor's Office, were located in Shevchenkovsky, Podolsky and Solomensky districts, but their location was not changed by the orders of the leadership and the investigators appealed to the Pechersk district court of the capital.

Such confusion with addresses and the ability to arbitrarily change the courts to consider petitions, according to A.Trigub, is a violation of the principle of legal certainty and adversely affects the provision of adequate protection of a person in criminal proceedings.

Let us recall that, Skliarenko, Sydorenko and Partners Law Firm was the official partner of the VIII Forum of the Ukrainian Bar Association in criminal law and proceedings.