Monitoring of criminal proceedings of Roman Anatolyevich Dubinevich (hearing on November 16, 2021)

November 16, 2021, in the Lutsk City District Court of the Volyn region, with the participation of the panel of judges Y.D. Artysh, O.A. Kalkova, V.M. Pokidyuk continued the hearing of case No. 154/3660/19 on charges of R.A. Dubinevich in the commission of a criminal offense under Part 1 of Art. 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine – premeditated murder. The monitoring of the court session was carried out through a video broadcast of the court session on the official website of the Judiciary of Ukraine.

At the hearing on November 16, the prosecution witnesses were questioned. It should be noted that witness A.I. Haruk was unable to provide an accurate description of the identity of the accused and other signs of his identification. In addition, the defendant’s lawyer I.O. Mamchenko drew the court’s attention to the fact that in each protocol for the presentation of identification by a witness, there are no reasons for carrying out identification specifically by photographs, and not live. The defense attorney believes that this evidence is inadequate.

The interrogation of the second and third witnesses was based on a replay of the events of the day of the murder. The witnesses could not confirm that it was R.A. Dubinevich who was seen on the day the criminal offense was committed, referring to the time that elapsed since the crime.

After questioning the witnesses present, prosecutor S.V. Polishchuk filed a motion for the repeated forced admission of another witness for the purpose of questioning him, since he did not appear in court, although he was duly notified of the time and place of consideration of this criminal proceeding. The defense and the accused supported the prosecutor’s motion. Based on the results of the trial, the court concluded that in order to prevent further delays in the consideration of the criminal proceedings, the prosecutor’s request for an admission should be granted.

The observer of the IAC ISHR also notes that in this proceeding there may be an “automatic” extension of the terms of detention. The previous decision of the Lutsk City District Court, dated November 11, 2021, extended the term of detention for the accused by 60 days, until December 09, 2021. For the first time, the term of detention for R.A. Dubinevich was extended on December 16, 2019, which means that the accused has been in custody for almost two years now, awaiting a court decision on the unchanging risks that the prosecutor cites in his petitions to extend the measure of restraint and for which, in turn, the court refers.

The ECtHR has often found a violation of paragraph 3 of Art. 5 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in cases where domestic courts continued detention, referring mainly to the gravity of the charges and using formulaic language, without even considering specific facts or the possibility of applying alternative measures (“Kharchenko v. Ukraine”, paragraphs 80 -81; “Tretyakov v. Ukraine” paragraph 59).

It is worth paying attention to the fact that there is also a positive dynamic of consideration in the trial. The case is at the stage of finalization of the trial and is moving towards judicial debate. Recall that the accused R.A. Dubinevich has been in custody pending a verdict since August 04, 2019. And the court’s attempts to prevent unnecessary delay correspond to the meaning of Art. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights in the context of the fact that accused cannot remain in the dark about their fate for too long (“Nakhmanovich v. Russia”, paragraph 89; “Ivanov v. Ukraine”, paragraph 71).

The monitoring group of the ISHR will continue to monitor this trial. The next date of the hearing is December 7, 2021.