Morning of April 30, 2025 started quite routinely for the deputy head of the Committee for the Protection of Guarantees of Advocacy of the Bar Council of the Kyiv Region Andriy Domansky — with a search.
But this time the situation turned out to be particularly symbolic: the search was not conducted at a colleague’s place from the Kyiv Region, but at the lawyer’s own residence.
The search took place at the lawyer’s place of residence, in the presence of a representative of the NAAU, without violating attorney-client privilege and without seizures. A. Domansky commented on the event with his characteristic composure: “Don’t panic! I am currently undergoing a search by the DBR, there is no breach of attorney-client privilege, we are already preparing the protocol”.
The reason for the search is more than unusual. As reported by Kostyantyn Globa, it concerns a criminal case involving a relative of the lawyer, who… sometimes feeds Andriy’s cat in case the defender is detained at work. Such “attention” to the lawyer’s daily life at Globa&Globa Law Firm, where Domansky works, was perceived as an attempt to monitor the lawyer’s activities under the guise of investigative actions.
“This looks like a formal pretext for monitoring what the lawyer is doing, which already smacks of exceeding authority,” Globa noted on his Facebook page.
Colleagues see these actions as an attempt to influence the lawyer, who is handling a number of socially important cases, and see it as a threat to the guarantees of advocacy. However, this time everything was done strictly according to procedure: the protocol was drawn up, the cat was fed, and the lawyer headed to the first of seven (!) scheduled court hearings for the day.
The irony of fate — the one who usually defends lawyers from pressure, found himself at the door of investigators. But he remained steadfast.
The Bar Council of the Kyiv Region expresses support for its colleague and calls on all lawyers to be vigilant in upholding their professional rights and guarantees.