The latest events proved beyond doubt that a very powerful and friendly team of professionals was formed and operates in the Bar Council of the Kyiv region as part of the Committee for the Protection of Guarantees of Advocacy. It is the well-coordinated work of the team that is the guarantee that the Committee fulfills its duties "excellently". As it happened, for example, last week during the "supermarathon" search, when investigative actions lasted more than 24 hours in total.
July 14, 2022 at 11 a.m. the hotline of the Committee for the Protection of Guarantees of Advocacy received an urgent message from SBU employees about the search of office premises where there may be workplaces of lawyers. The Committee's lawyers reacted instantly and were already at the place of the search within 20 minutes.
It turned out that in the 6-story building specified in the notice, there are indeed many workplaces of lawyers, among whom there were lawyers from the Kyiv region, as well as lawyers from the city of Kyiv and other regions.
Regular lawyers who left for the search asked other colleagues from the Committee to join them if possible in order to guarantee the protection of the rights of many lawyers at the location of their workplaces (at that time it was not yet known how many lawyers RAKO and other Councils needed protection).
Help in the defense was also needed due to the fact that colleagues from the Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Lawyers of the NAAU (that is, Kyiv) did not come to the search, although (according to the investigator) both the Kyiv Bar Council and the NAAU were also informed about the search . Under any conditions, it happened that the entire burden of protecting the rights and guarantees of the legal profession of more than 20 lawyers fell on the shoulders of the members of the specialized Committee of RAKO.
Having read the documents for the search, the members of the Committee found that the Court Decision is illegal, since an unauthorized person applied to the court with a petition, in addition, many workplaces of lawyers were found at the place of the search, where it is not possible to search without the appropriate permits.
Despite the violation, a search of the office building was still started. But thanks to the concerted professional work of the members of the Committee, who prevented the investigators from entering the lawyers' offices, where the documents containing the lawyer's secret were kept, at 6-8 p.m. investigators stopped their illegal actions at the place of the search.
Despite the fatigue and emotional tension, the members of the Committee did not leave the office building feeling that the investigators were making something up.
And indeed, after 10 minutes, at 6:30 p.m. a second group of investigators arrived at the specified office building and reported that they had to conduct an urgent search at the same address. The members of the Committee, who were already at the place of investigation, were joined by other members of the Committee. But all of them together began to oppose the attempts of the investigators to start an illegal search, which they called urgent.
It is obvious that the investigators did not have any grounds for the urgency of the search. In addition, at the request of the representatives of the Committee, neither the resolutions on the appointment of the group of investigators and the group of prosecutors, nor the mandate to carry out urgent investigative actions of the operatives, who were present there in the number of 11 people, were given. Also, an extract from the EDPR was not provided. That is, the investigators did not have any documents for an urgent search.
For a long time, members of the RAKO Committee restrained investigators from illegal actions, while at the same time conducting an "educational process" for investigators in order for the latter to correctly understand how to read the norms of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine. As a result, the investigative actions were suspended until the appearance of the executive director – the prosecutor.
Only at 10:30 p.m. the head of the SBU department arrived, and a little later the prosecutor (deputy head of the department of the GPU Office), who led the illegal search. Despite the fact that during the entire time of the illegal search, the representatives of the RAKO Committee conducted a constant fierce debate with the investigators and the prosecutor regarding compliance with the rules of the CPC, not allowing them to enter the offices where the lawyers had their workplaces, the investigative actions continued throughout the night. On the morning of the next day, other members of the Committee arrived at the search site to replace their colleagues, and with a new composition worked until 2 p.m.
Thanks to the coordinated professional teamwork of the representatives of the Committee for the Protection of Guarantees of Advocacy of the Kyiv Oblast Bar Council, the rights of Kyiv Oblast advocates were fully protected, and the documents and digital media of the advocates at their workplaces were not inspected or seized.
In addition, the members of the RAKO Committee took measures to protect the rights of lawyers of Kyiv and other regions, since representatives of the Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Lawyers of Kyiv (NAAU), unfortunately, did not come during the entire time of the long search.
The lawyers, whose rights were protected, expressed gratitude to the members of the Committee for their work, support of each other and loyalty to their values.
However, in this situation, the most important thing is that all lawyers now know that the Committee guarantees protection in the Kyiv region!