The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has accused a group of Kyiv lawyers of allegedly tracking court rulings on future searches in order to notify their clients in advance. The lawyers, in turn, stated that NABU had installed "eavesdropping" in their office to record conversations with clients who are under investigation by NABU itself. The Prosecutor General's Office has already intervened in the situation and opened a criminal investigation against NABU detectives for violating attorney-client privilege and illegal searches, according to UNN.
What happened?
Today, NABU published a video stating that lawyers were "collecting information" about future searches by monitoring judges' rulings. At the same time, these same videos show that NABU was wiretapping the lawyers' office back in November 2023, and the criminal proceedings against them were registered only on December 18 - urgently, on the day, or rather almost at midnight, when the lawyers discovered NABU's "wiretapping" in their office.
That is, at the time of the wiretapping, NABU had not opened any proceedings against this group of lawyers, and the "equipment" was drilled from the floor below, which NABU had taken out specifically for these purposes.
According to the Criminal Procedure Code (Articles 214 and 246), a covert action cannot be carried out without open proceedings. Moreover, when it comes to lawyers, whose conversations are protected by attorney-client privilege guaranteed by the Constitution. That is, listening to a lawyer before the case is entered in the ERDR is illegal.
It is noteworthy that NABU detectives were wiretapping the lawyers' negotiating room, where cases were discussed in which the prosecution was the NABU detectives themselves. In other words, those who are investigating the case are secretly listening to how the defense is preparing a strategy against them.
What about those rulings?
NABU accuses lawyers of accessing rulings of investigating judges. But according to sources in the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court, decisions on searches are not stored in the registers. That is, even with access to the closed parts of the registers, there is no information about the searches there.
In addition, the NABU video even contains a ruling from 2017, which could well have become public - because 7 years have already passed.
At the same time, the NABU statement does not say why they are dealing with this qualification of the crime, because it is not under their jurisdiction according to the law.
According to Art. 216 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, NABU has the right to investigate only cases where:
• senior officials are involved (category "A"),
• there is a corruption component,
• damage to the state in large amounts is caused.
And interference in electronic systems is the jurisdiction, rather, of the police. Therefore, a violation of jurisdiction may indicate an abuse of power by NABU.
This is a classic case where the NPU or the SBI are direct procedural bodies. NABU has no justified legal connection here, except for the desire to "keep the case under its control"
As of now, the Prosecutor General's Office has opened proceedings regarding the actions of NABU detectives - that is, the situation already looks not like an exposure of a lawyer's "scheme", but like an abuse of power by the detectives themselves. The National Association of Lawyers also confirmed gross violations by NABU and SAP, in particular, conducting searches in the lawyers' office without sanctions.