Lawyer: NBU chief lawyer cannot be removed from office because he has not yet been served with a notice of suspicion

The process of removing the chief lawyer of the National Bank of Ukraine Oleksandr Zyma is currently impossible, as investigators have not yet served him with a notice of suspicion. This opinion was expressed by lawyer Oleksandr Baidyk in an exclusive commentary to UNN.

Context

The SBI has opened criminal proceedings against Oleksandr Zyma, director of the legal department of the National Bank of Ukraine , under articles that refer to abuse of power and official position. The case concerns a letter from the National Bank to the Deposit Guarantee Fund signed by Zyma, in which he recommended that the Fund withdraw the lawsuits filed by Concord Bank against the NBU. The document referred to four lawsuits filed by the bank against the NBU, in which Concorde demanded that fines totaling almost UAH 63.5 million be canceled. These lawsuits were filed before the NBU decided to liquidate Concorde and put it into temporary administration.

On April 22, the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv recognized Yulia Sosedka, co-founder of Concord Bank, as a victim in this criminal proceeding. According to Yelena Sosedka, a co-owner of Concorde, Zyma deprived the bank's shareholders of their constitutional right to a fair trial by his instructions. 

However, SBI investigators ignored this court decision for more than 4 months and did not hand Yulia Sosedka a memo on the rights of the victim. Instead, the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office transferred Zyma's case to the Pechersk District Police Department for investigation. Yulia Sosiedka does not rule out that this is an attempt to delay the investigation.

The CPC provides for the possibility of interim measures in criminal proceedings, including removal from office. This is carried out during the pre-trial investigation, but the person must be directly served with a suspicion of committing a criminal offense. After that, the person can only be removed from office at the request of the investigator, agreed with the prosecutor, which is submitted to the investigating judge at the location of the pre-trial investigation body

According to him, the suspension can be for up to two months to prevent the suspect from influencing witnesses, destroying evidence at his workplace, etc. 

In addition, according to the lawyer, the NBU management may decide to conduct an internal audit and suspend Zyma for the duration of the audit.

Add

Earlier, security expert Serhiy Shabovta said in a commentary to UNN that Zyma has a patron and therefore feels impunity. According to him, the National Bank's chief lawyer, Oleksandr Zyma, is a person close to NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyi. That is why he is confident that he will not be prosecuted under the current legislation for his violations.

Recall

Concorde's shareholders appealed the NBU's decision to withdraw the bank from the market, and the Dnipropetrovs'k District Administrative Court found the revocation of Concorde's banking license to be unlawful and revoked it . However, the liquidation process, if it has begun, cannot be stopped under the current legislation. Even if the courts find the regulator's actions unlawful, the bank will still be withdrawn from the market, which only confirms the imperfection of Ukrainian legislation.