In the high-profile case regarding the death of businessman Adnan Kivan during treatment at the Odesa clinic Odrex, the issue of time is becoming increasingly acute. Following a change of court and the restart of the case proceedings, risks are growing that the criminal proceedings may end not with a verdict, but with the expiration of the statute of limitations. UNN looked into how this mechanism works and whether the defense side could be intentionally implementing such a scenario.
Statutes of limitations in criminal proceedings are a legally defined period during which the state has the right to hold a person criminally liable. If the court fails to deliver a verdict before this period expires, the criminal proceedings may be closed regardless of how compelling the evidence of the defendant's guilt is.
Denys Neviadomskyi, President of the All-Ukrainian Association of Retired Judges, explains that this mechanism is part of the guarantees of fair justice.
If the state has been unable to bring a case to a verdict within a certain period, it loses the right to punish the person and the proceedings must be closed. This mechanism protects an individual from endless prosecution and motivates the investigation to work faster,
That is why in criminal proceedings where deadlines are approaching their end, the time factor often becomes no less important than the evidence itself. In particular, this concerns the criminal proceedings against Odrex clinic doctors Vitaliy Rusakov and Maryna Bielotserkovska, who are being tried under Part 1 of Art. 140 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine – improper performance of professional duties by a medical worker.
According to the investigation, after the surgery, Adnan Kivan might not have been prescribed the necessary antibacterial therapy and there might have been a failure to properly respond to postoperative complications. According to the case materials, this could have led to the development of sepsis, which caused the patient's death.
In recent months, the process was approaching one of its most important stages – hearing an independent oncology expert who was to analyze and provide their vision of whether there were errors in the doctors' actions and violations of protocols, and inconsistencies in the medical documentation. However, instead of moving to the medical essence of the case, the process effectively returned to the beginning.
After a series of procedural steps by the defense, including a motion to change jurisdiction, the proceedings were transferred from the Prymorskyi District Court of Odesa to the Kyivskyi District Court. In accordance with legal requirements, the new court panel must start the trial from scratch.
Lawyers note that any procedural actions that increase the duration of the trial objectively affect the statute of limitations. That is why in the legal community, the transfer of cases to other courts, numerous motions for recusal, and other procedural mechanisms are often viewed through the prism of how much they can bring the moment of the statute of limitations' expiration closer.
Everything that delays the consideration of a case affects the expiration of the statute of limitations. The court must respond to the abuse of procedural rights by the participants in the process,
This is particularly relevant for medical negligence proceedings, which are traditionally complex and lengthy due to the need for expert examinations, analysis of a large volume of medical documentation, and the involvement of highly specialized experts. According to Neviadomskyi, the line between legitimate defense and stalling the process is often very thin.
With skillful work by lawyers, the line between the bona fide use of procedural rights and the abuse of these rights is very thin,
The expert points out that recently, Ukrainian courts have increasingly faced situations where, due to personnel changes or other procedural circumstances, the consideration of cases has to start anew.
It is also important that in the Odrex case, the initiative to change jurisdiction arose exactly when the court approached the examination of medical evidence and the hearing of an independent expert. This naturally raises the question: was the main goal of such procedural steps the change of court as such, or was it to gain additional time.
For the bereaved family of Adnan Kivan, the risks of such a scenario are obvious. If the statute of limitations expires before the court completes the consideration of the case, the proceedings may be closed without answering the main question – are doctors Rusakov and Bielotserkovska guilty of their patient's death?
In such a case, the proceedings risk ending not with an assessment of medical evidence, not with an analysis of expert examinations and not with a court verdict, but with the simple expiration of procedural time.
And that is why the issue of the statute of limitations today becomes one of the key factors in the Odrex case – alongside the conclusions of medical experts and the evidence that the court has yet to examine.