The injured party may request that the court proceedings be expedited and object to unjustified adjournments of hearings. How these mechanisms can help prevent the limitation periods from expiring, particularly in the case concerning medical negligence by Odrex doctors, was examined by UNN.
When court hearings are systematically postponed and the limitation periods for criminal liability continue to expire, injured parties are not obliged to remain passive observers of the proceedings. The Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine provides a number of tools that allow them to seek faster consideration of the case and respond to possible abuses of procedural rights.
As attorney Vitalii Fedirko explained in a comment to UNN, one of the key mechanisms is a motion under Part 6 of Article 28 of the Criminal Procedure Code requesting that the criminal proceedings be conducted within shorter time limits than those provided for by the Code, with justification based on the approaching limitation periods and the risk of the case being closed. The injured party may demand that hearings be scheduled as a priority, that the intervals between them be shortened, and may object to adjournments without valid reasons.
Another mechanism is contacting the head of the court regarding the organization of the consideration of the case, including oversight of compliance with reasonable time limits and the distribution of the workload.
Injured parties should also record the reasons why hearings do not take place. If participants in the proceedings systematically fail to appear in court, the injured party may submit evidence disproving the validity of their absence.
The attorney also separately drew attention to the possibility of holding defense attorneys disciplinarily liable in the event of abuse of procedural rights.
The injured party should actively object to adjournments, submit motions for the application of compulsory appearance, a monetary penalty, recognition of the absence as unjustified, and, where grounds exist, for a finding that the person is evading proceedings; record all facts in the minutes and submit the relevant applications; and, in the event of abuse by a defense attorney and where documented facts exist, initiate the issue of the attorney’s disciplinary liability (by filing an appeal with the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of the Bar)
But can systematic postponements of court hearings constitute grounds for suspending the limitation periods? Under Part 2 of Article 49 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, the limitation period is suspended if the person who committed the criminal offense has evaded the pretrial investigation or the court. At the same time, the accused person’s failure to appear by itself, even if repeated, is not proof of evasion. To apply this mechanism, it is necessary to establish the intentional nature of such actions.
The chronology of the adjournments may also be important, especially if motions to postpone are systematically filed at the last moment against the backdrop of approaching limitation periods.
Case concerning medical negligence by Odrex doctors: 20 of 29 hearings postponed in two months
The question of how injured parties can protect their right to a timely trial is particularly acute in the high-profile case concerning medical negligence by Odrex doctors.
The Kyivskyi District Court of Odesa is hearing criminal proceedings against surgeon Vitalii Rusakov and oncologist Maryna Bielotserkovska, who are accused of improper performance of their professional duties under Part 1 of Article 140 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The case concerns the circumstances surrounding the treatment of Odesa businessman and founder of KADORR Group Adnan Kivan, who died on October 27, 2024, at the Odrex clinic.
According to the investigation, after the operation, the medical workers may have failed to prescribe the patient the necessary antibacterial therapy and may have responded improperly to postoperative complications. According to the findings of a forensic medical examination, this could have led to the development of sepsis and the businessman’s death. Neither doctor admits guilt. The court is to provide the final assessment of their actions.
However, the court proceedings in the case have already been accompanied by regular postponements for several months.
As UNN previously reported, in September, only six of the 13 scheduled court hearings took place in full, while seven were postponed. The situation worsened in October: the Kyivskyi District Court of Odesa was able to hold only three of the 16 scheduled hearings. Thus, over the course of two months, only nine of the 29 scheduled hearings took place, while 20 were postponed.
The presiding judge in the case, Viktor Chaplytskyi, has repeatedly drawn attention to the conduct of the lawyers representing the accused doctors. As UNN reported, in September he deemed the reasons for the failure of Vitalii Rusakov's defense lawyers to appear at the court hearings unjustified and sent the relevant ruling to the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of the Bar.
And on October 29, the judge warned the lawyers that he would respond to any further motions to postpone the hearings. Nevertheless, as early as the following day, October 30, Rusakov's defense lawyers filed yet another motion to postpone the hearing—approximately ten minutes before it was due to begin. It is currently unknown whether this situation will have procedural or disciplinary consequences for the lawyers.