Our country was attacked by an enemy waging a merciless, treacherous and, most importantly, aggressive war. Everyone rose up to defend the territorial integrity of our country: both old and young. Every conscious citizen of our country became a participant in this terrible, bloody confrontation and tries to be as useful as possible where he is.
The Constitution of our country declares that Ukraine is a legal state, where the key element is the court, the rights and freedoms of a person and a citizen are protected by the court, the jurisdiction of the courts extends to any legal dispute and any criminal accusation. Justice is administered exclusively by courts, and judges, while administering justice, are independent and guided by the principle of the rule of law.
An integral part of justice is the prosecutor's office, which performs the function of a public prosecutor, and the bar, which performs the function of legal protection through the provision of professional legal assistance. Justice is a process built on the principles of equal rights of participants in this process, competition and dispositiveness. Thus, the civil process is a competition between the plaintiff and the defendant, and the criminal one is a competition between the prosecution and the defense in proving the truth of their statements before the court. However, by law, only a lawyer has the right to represent another person in court, as well as to defend against criminal charges.
Therefore, the legal profession has a human rights function, and it is the lawyer who is assigned the duty of a human rights defender by law.
Today, millions of citizens need legal protection from Russian aggression and the bloody consequences left behind by the Russian horde. In this regard, the figure of a lawyer as a defender of the rights and freedoms of citizens and other subjects becomes symbolic and acquires special importance, because lawyers are called to carry out a special humanitarian mission aimed at protecting all those in need.
We cannot stand aside from the armed struggle of the entire Ukrainian people and the processes aimed at protecting our Motherland. That is why the legal community must unite to form a united human rights front.
Separate areas of this invisible front are the volunteer activities of lawyers, which consists in going to the settlements liberated from the occupation invasion, to provide citizens with primary legal assistance and to ensure the documentation of numerous crimes of the Russian Federation, in particular, in the territory of the Kyiv region.
Thus, in March 2022, the Kyiv Region Bar Council established a Committee on Interaction with the Military Administration, Law Enforcement Bodies, and the Judicial System to ensure the protection of the civilian population under martial law.
The creation of the Committee was initiated by a group of lawyers: Yevheniya Vakulenko, Andriy Volkov, Andriy Hrubskyi, Dmytro Dmytrenko, Ruslan Malik, Volodymyr Kabanov and Serhii Yarosh .
Lawyer Yevgenia Vakulenko was elected as the head of the Committee.
Immediately after its creation, the members of the Committee began to work actively, in particular:
– took an active part in drafting the Law "On compensation for damage and destruction of certain categories of immovable property as a result of hostilities, acts of terrorism, sabotage caused by the military aggression of the Russian Federation", developed and submitted numerous proposals to the draft law, which were taken into account by the specialized committee of the Supreme Council of Ukraine;
– carried out a number of trips to the places of mass destruction of residential and other objects in Kyiv region, caused by the armed aggression of the Rashists;
– developed and distributed among citizens reminders and templates of statements and other documents for documenting the consequences of armed aggression, gathering evidence and initiating the process of bringing to criminal responsibility persons who are guilty of committing the relevant war crimes, provided direct legal assistance to a number of people in the preparation of relevant documents and appeals to law enforcement agencies;
– provided citizens with numerous legal consultations on various social and other life issues;
– took a number of other measures (meetings with various relevant officials, discussions, meetings, sending appeals, etc.) aimed at ensuring cooperation with individual military administrations, the General Staff of the Armed Forces, the Military Law and Order Service and individual territorial communities of the city of Kyiv and the Kyiv region with the aim of providing legal protection .