An unacceptable practice has emerged in Ukraine: a court sets bail for a person, but the banks do not allow it to be paid. The person remains in a pre-trial detention centre not by a court decision, but because a bank is blocking the payment to the court's official deposit account.
In the documents available to defence lawyers, the reasons given for refusal appear absurd: ‘there are many complaints about this IBAN’, ‘the transaction was cancelled by the bank for security reasons’, ‘technical error’. The account in question belongs to the High Anti-Corruption Court and is held with the State Treasury Service. Payments of 10, 100 and 1,000 hryvnias were rejected, as were payments from lawyers and from the suspects' relatives. One payment service provider even demanded an explanation of the ‘economic rationale’ for paying bail on behalf of another person – the economic rationale of freedom!
When asked about the legal grounds, the banks refer to ‘internal rules’. Unofficially, they refer to recommendations from the National Bank. The NBU replies that it does not block payments itself. In the end, nobody seems to be responsible for anything. Meanwhile, a person sits in a pre-trial detention centre under a court decision stating that they may be released.
This is no longer a technical glitch. Several people for whom the court has set bail are unable to pay it and remain in custody. In effect, the decision on a person's liberty is being made not by a court, but by a bank.
The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly stressed that the possibility of release on bail must be real, not theoretical. In Gafà v. Malta and Kolakovic v. Malta, the Court examined unattainable financial conditions for release; in Iwańczuk v. Poland, the state's delay in accepting bail; and in Istomina v. Ukraine, the setting of bail without proper assessment of the person's ability to pay it. In Kharchenko v. Ukraine, the Court emphasised the need for effective, not illusory, judicial review of deprivation of liberty.
The Constitutional Court of Ukraine articulated the same principle in Decision No. 9-r(II)/2026 of 21 July 2026: bail must not turn into a disguised form of detention.
Article 182 of the Criminal Procedure Code expressly allows bail to be paid by another natural or legal person. A bank has no authority to decide whether a person should remain in custody.
Bail that cannot be paid turns into detention with no alternative. This violates the Constitution and laws of Ukraine, as well as international human rights standards.
In view of the above, the National Bank must immediately put an end to the practice of blocking payments solely on account of their purpose, and banks must process lawful payments.
NGO ‘Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group’
NGO ‘Center for Civil Liberties’
Civic Union ‘Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union’
NGO ‘Ukrainian Institute for Human Rights’
Charitable Foundation ‘Human and Law’
All-Ukrainian Charitable Organisation ‘Ukrainian Legal Aid Foundation’
