Lawyer: SBI investigators may refuse to recognize victims in criminal cases because they do not want unnecessary troubles

The State Bureau of Investigation has a widespread practice of investigators refusing to recognize citizens as victims in criminal proceedings. This may be due to the fact that law enforcement officers feel impunity and do not want any unnecessary trouble. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive commentary to UNN by a member of the National Bar Association, Oleksandr Zolotukhin.

Some kind of certain impunity, perhaps because they (SBI investigators - ed.) do not want to have an extra participant in the criminal proceedings, who can, relatively speaking, create problems within its consideration

According to him, the victim, as a party to the process, can file motions, ask for the appointment of examinations, that is, to try to actively encourage the investigation to investigate the crime. 

“And when there is no injured party, only the complainant and the accused, it is much easier to close the criminal proceedings or put them on hold for longer to allow them to be investigated. Therefore, the investigation itself is not interested in this,” Zolotukhin noted.

He added that refusal to recognize a victim in criminal proceedings  is a common practice in cases where the harm is not directly obvious. For example, if it is a case of murder of a husband, his wife is recognized as a victim, because it is directly obvious. And if it is, for example, material damage, citizens have to go to court to cancel the investigator's decision to refuse to recognize them as victims and defend their rights.

Recall

Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv recognized Yulia Sosiedka, co-founder of Concord Bank, as a victim in the criminal proceedings over alleged abuse of power or office that led to grave consequences, Director of the Legal Department of the National Bank of Ukraine Oleksandr Zyma.

As UNN reported ,, the criminal case concerns a letter from the National Bank of Ukraine to the Deposit Guarantee Fund signed by Oleksandr Zyma, in which he recommended that the Fund withdraw the lawsuits filed by Concord against the NBU.  The document referred to four lawsuits filed by Concorde Bank against the NBU, in which the bank demanded the cancellation of fines totaling almost UAH 63.5 million. These lawsuits were filed even before the National Bank decided to liquidate Concorde and put it under temporary administration.

Olena Sosiedka, co-founder of JSCB Concorde, stated that the National Bank of Ukraine ignored the proposals of the shareholders of Concorde Bank before its liquidation, and then, on the instructions of the regulator, they were deprived of the right to a fair trial.