MENU
Documenting
war crimes in Ukraine
The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

Similar articles

‘They just killed him’ — Vitaliy Matukhno, an inmate suffering from cancer, died in the prison hospital Volodymyr Panasenko, victim of Ukraine’s most egregious miscarriage of justice, freed after over 16 yearsRussia upholds 14-year prison sentences for Crimean Tatar human rights activismRussia escalates torture conditions against imprisoned Crimean Tatar leader Nariman Dzhelyal Young Crimean Tatar illegally imprisoned in Russia on ‘treason’ charges for trying to visit gravely ill father Life-saving medication taken away from gravely ill Crimean Solidarity civic journalist in Russian occupation prison Lawyers on Russian FSB hitlist for defending Crimean Tatar political prisoners Russia plans life sentences for charges used against Ukrainian political prisoners and opponents of its war in UkraineImprisoned Ukrainian civic journalist could lose hearing because of Russian brutal torment Russia sentences Crimean Tatar political prisoner to 11 years for free thinking and civic activismRussia is risking the life of imprisoned Ukrainian civic journalist on hunger strike Blind and disabled Ukrainian political prisoner hospitalized, delaying Russia’s attempt to sentence him to 18 years The Russians “treat torture as entertainment” – Enerhodar Deputy Mayor held hostage for almost a year Ukrainian officials prevent former political prisoner held in Russia from returning to UkraineImprisoned Ukrainian civic journalist declares dry hunger strike in occupied Crimea Russia denies Ukrainian prisoners of war protected status, tortures out 'confessions' and then stages illegal ‘trials’ ECHR finds Ukraine in violation over life prisoner tortured into confessing to somebody else’s crime UN Committee orders Russia to refrain from killing second Crimean Tatar political prisoner in one monthKharkiv ‘refugee’ held prisoner in psychiatric hospital for refusing Russian citizenship Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski and his Viasna colleagues sentenced to heavy prison terms in Belarus
• Topics / Penal institutions

REPORT on the results of a study of court decisions on release from prisons due to illness

15.08.2022   
Gennadiy Tokarev, Vladyslav Dolzhko, Mykola Komarovsky, Pavlo Shwab
The study analyzed 1417 rulings of the first-instance courts under pt.2 of Art. 84 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which were delivered between January 1, 2017 and June 30, 2022 throughout Ukraine and made openly available in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions.

The prison administrations initiated the proceedings only in at least 52.96% of all cases, while the initiation by the prisoners took place in total in at least 46.97% of all investigated decisions. Therefore, in almost half of all proceedings, the administration does not submit petitions or there is a certain delay in such a submission.

We also established that 60.30% of all investigated proceedings concerned prisoners serving their sentences in one of 15 penal institutions that operate interregional multidisciplinary or specialized hospitals. Moreover, among prisoners who died during ongoing proceedings for release due to illness, before receiving a court decision, 83.08% of all prisoners served their sentences in these 15 institutions.

We compared the received statistical information about the decisions from these institutions and the data of monitoring visits of the KHPG experts to conduct a more thorough study of the possible reasons and prerequisites for the results obtained.

We also investigated the influence of the circumstances related to the role and positions of individual subjects of the proceedings on the final decision of the court. Among other things, we obtained almost opposite results depending on the subject of the initiation of the proceedings - when submitted by the administration, the percentage of granted petitions was at least 75.10%, and when submitted by the prisoner and his defense counsel, only at least 25.85% and 20.15% were granted, accordingly.

Separately, we investigated the impact of the prosecutor's position on the outcome of the trial. To our surprise, the percentage of coincidence between the prosecutor's position and the court's decision is at least 82.05% of all cases, while the cases where the position deviation is clearly recorded are only at least 5.10%.

Another area of research was the analysis of the courts' use of references to individual legal acts and the circumstances of the case. Within the framework of this analysis, we examined references to the List of diseases that are the basis for submitting to the court the materials on the release of prisoners from further serving the sentence, references to non-medical indicators, references to Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Ukraine No. 8 of 28 September 1973, and references to legal positions of the European Court of Human Rights.

Among other things, we received results that indicate a high percentage of courts using acts that do not have binding force or are already extremely outdated (Resolution of the Supreme Administrative Court No. 8 was adopted almost half a century ago).

On the other hand, when considering applications for the release of prisoners from punishment due to illness, the courts are not very willing to apply the practice of the ECtHR – the reference to the legal position is present only in 5.57% of all the examined decisions.

Another area of research was the analysis of proceedings in cases where the prisoner died before receiving the court's decision. Therefore, a total of 65 decisions were recorded, where it was stated that submissions (applications, petitions) remain unconsidered by the court due to the death of the prisoner. This number of cases is 4.42% of all investigated cases.

We analyzed the data on the duration of the proceedings, including depending on the subject of the submission, and the penitentiary institution where these prisoners served their sentences. In our opinion, the issue of the mortality of prisoners who were unable to take advantage of the stipulated right to release should be one of the indicators of the functioning of the entire procedure.

You can download the full text of the report using the link below.

Report on the results of a study of court decisions on release from prison due to illness.docx

 Share this