“Today, on September 5, marks the six years from the day when the High Anti -Corruption Court with his appeal Chamber began their work on cases. Undoubtedly, the final conclusions about the success or failure of the creation of anti-corruption justice in Ukraine are too early, as they will be superficial and not complete, since a qualitative assessment of the effectiveness of any reform can be provided in a few decades.”, – WRITE: www.pravda.com.ua
Undoubtedly, the final conclusions about the success or failure of the creation of anti-corruption justice in Ukraine are too early, as they will be superficial and not complete, since a qualitative assessment of the effectiveness of any reform can be provided in a few decades. But to summarize the intermediate results, analyzing the path, in particular, in the form of a case -law, to understand where this “icebreaker” moves and where it is necessary to adjust its course – to change or tweak the jurisprudence, it is definitely necessary.
Due to the fact that, according to the author’s observations, it is most often public criticism in the media in the Anti -Corruption Court regarding the amount of pledge, which is appointed suspected of “corruption [використаю саме це слово для узагальнення всіх злочинів, справи щодо яких розглядаються в антикорупційному суді]I will try to briefly tell about the practice of determining its size, which has occurred in almost six years (from 05.09.2019 to 30.06.2025) of judicial work.
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A few words about the essence of pledge During the investigations of criminal offenses (crimes), detectives with prosecutors often initiate the question of applying to persons suspected of their commission, preventive measures, which in accordance with Part 1 of Art. 176 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine (hereinafter referred to as the CCP) is a personal obligation, personal guarantee, pledge, house arrest, detention.
The pledge is a rather specific measure, since his investigating judges may be defined for the suspect as an independent type of precautionary measure or as an alternative to keeping a person in custody (this is when the suspected person is in custody, but giving him or her the right to get out of custody. I note that such decisions are not a Ukrainian invention, but a normal practice, widespread worldwide, especially in countries that go democratic.
How “pledge” works Imagmber the situation that a person has suspected of involvement in committing a crime and at the time of investigation by a decision of the investigating judge, a number of duties (for example, forbidden to communicate with other suspects or witnesses, is obliged to arrive at the call to the investigator, prosecutor or court, and a disposal of a person, and Judge the amount of money.
The state, having received the specified transfer, does not become the owner of the funds, but actually accepts them as a kind of financial guarantee that the suspect during his or her actions or omissions of the investigation will comply with his duties. That is, it is such a fuse from obstructing the investigation of the suspect. But if this fuse does not work, the funds transferred to the state are transferred to the state. Such a deprivation of a person paid is not a punishment for a crime in which he is suspected, that is, he is not yet guilty, but is only a way of responding to obstacles to investigation.
Consequences of violation of duties For example, the resolutions of the Appeal Chamber of the Supreme Anti -Corruption Court only in April 2020 in the income of the state passed because of the suspect’s failure to fulfill:
- To deposit the passport, which gave the opportunity to travel abroad – 35 million UAH of collateral (case 991/1114/20);
- not to communicate in the investigation with other suspects in – 30 million UAH of collateral (case 991/2529/20);
- To appear on the call to the investigating judge – 536 thousand UAH of collateral (case 991/2890/20).
Most readers will agree that they are talking about huge funds, but as practice has shown, even the risk of losing them did not restrain the suspects of the mentioned cases from the behavior that could harm the investigation.
The size of the pledge “within” As a general rule, the amounts in which the judge must set the pledge should be determined in the amounts provided by law, which have their upper and lower boundaries. Usually, they change every year if the state budget law for the respective year changes the value of the subsistence minimum for a able -bodied person.
Here is brief about how the calculations of the amount of pledge occur and where the numbers come from for them:
1) as of January 1, one subsistence minimum as a corresponding value in 2019 was 1921 UAH, in 2020 – 2102 UAH, in 2021 – 2270 UAH, in 2022 – 2481 UAH, in 2023 – 2684 UAH, in 2024 and 2025 – 3028 UAH;
2) Usually the investigating judge, taking into account one of the values given at the time of the decision on the amount of collateral, should determine the amount of collate
- a non -crime – from 1 to 20 subsistence levels for able -bodied persons (in 2025 it is from 3028 to 60 560 UAH);
- a serious crime – from 20 to 80 the subsistence minimum for able -bodied persons (in 2025 it is from 60 560 to 242 240 UAH);
- Particularly serious crime – from 80 to 300 subsistence levels for able -bodied persons (in 2025 it is the sum from 242 240 to 908 400 UAH) (paragraph 1 of Part 5 of Article 182 of the CCP);
3) that is, the calculation in 2025 looks like when a person is suspected of committing a particularly serious crime [такими певні дії визнаються відповідно до статті Кримінального кодексу, за якою висунуто підозру, в поєднанні із ст. 12 цього кодексу!]and the judge decides to apply the maximum amount of collateral, which is in the range of possible boundaries (from 80 to 300 subsistence …), then 300 sizes x 3028 UAH = 908 400 UAH.
Separately, I note that the number of subsistence to choose in a particular case – 80, 120, 233 … or 300 is determined by the investigating judge. If you wish to understand what the judge is guided in more detail in Chapter 2 of the monograph “Formation of Anti -Corruption Justice in Ukraine”, issued in Kiev in 2024, which is freely available on this link.
Exit “beyond However, very often investigative judges in corruption cases determine the suspected collateral, which exceed the above limit. It is the decisions that are about setting the amounts of collateral that can be measured not by thousands, but by millions, tens or even hundreds of millions of UAH, most often the lawyers are criticized. And the presence of criticism is a normal thing, given that lawyer clients are most likely not satisfied when the investigating judge determines that they can get out of the pre -trial detention center if the pledge is paid not 242 thousand or 908 thousand UAH, and UAH 10 or 100 million.
However, the specified exit is explicitly stipulated in the law stating that in exceptional cases, if the investigating judge determines that the amount of funds within the specified limits (mentioned above) is not able to ensure the execution of a person suspected of committing a severe or OS The alleged crime entrusted to her duties may be assigned in an amount exceeding 80 or 300 subsistence levels for able -bodied persons respectively (paragraph 2 of Part 5 of Article 182 of the CCP).
A little statistics In the period from 05.09.2019 to 30.06.2025, including investigative judges of the Supreme Anti -Corruption Court, 1127 petitions for precautionary measures for suspects were submitted, of which 26 concerned a personal obligation, 369 – pledge, 43 – house arrest, 689.
Because the statistics on detention include not only those cases in which the prosecutor asked for detention with the alternative of pledge, but also those concerning the “correspondence” detention [це коли про альтернативу застави не просять, бо таке рішення потрібне, щоб на його виконання за межами країни затримати підозрюваного та повернути в Україну для участі в суді]then the number of petitions for investigative judges of the Supreme Anti -Corruption Court, in which the prosecution also proposed to determine the amount of collateral, for almost six years of work received not 1058 (689+369), but slightly less. However, exactly more than 2/3 of all requests for the use of precautions. I assert this with confidence, since during the years of work, there was only once the opportunity to check the legality and validity of the decision to keep the suspect in the pre -trial detention center, who was not determined in the form of pledge.
Along with this, of the 1127 of the aforementioned cases, the Chamber of Appeal of the Supreme Anti -Corruption Court, which, including, checks the correctness of the establishment by the investigative judges of the pledge, was conducted in the order of 408 cases. As a result in 109 cases, the amount of pledge was determined by the Anti -Corruption Court, including its Chamber of Appeal, within the limits stipulated by law (ranged from 49 620.00 UAH and to 908 400.00 UAH), and in 299 – with relevant borders (amounted to UAH 336 320.00. in the case of a particularly serious crime).
Special cases are incredible bail When analyzing critics by determining the high size of collateral, you realize that their main argument is one – a person cannot make the amount of pledge that the court has defined as a condition from the pre -trial detention center, since the amount is too large.
However, every case about the use of a preventive measure, including the one that involves pledge, is very individual and unique.
Critics of decisions on high bail are silent that the Anti -Corruption Court is hearing cases of high -ranking corruption, suspected in which they are often one of the richest people in Ukraine. And cases do not apply to any small theft, but corruption on an all -Ukrainian scale. For example, there were cases in which the pledge was determined in the amount: UAH 523 million – suspicion of facilitating budget reimbursement of value added tax in the amount of more than UAH 3 billion; UAH 268 million – suspicions of seizing property of the International Airport; UAH 60 million – suspicions of the activity of a criminal organization, which introduced the mechanism of importation of goods into the customs territory with concealment from customs control with the non -receipt of funds in the amount of more than UAH 289 million, etc.
In addition, practice shows that many of the suspected crimes do not always formally declare their wealth and often have the ability to pay pledge at the expense of hidden funds and property. That is, when we talk about the pledge established by the Anti -Corruption Court, we usually mean suspects who do not live on a minimum wage.
For example, the amount of pledge in the amount of several million, tens or hundreds of million UAH for suspects was often introduced and those who had continued the investigation were “secured” from custody. Yes, sometimes these amounts were made after the decision on the application of a preventive measure (for example, in cases 991/1301/24 – UAH 272 million, 991/6280/25 – 200 million UAH, 991/6137/22 – 129 million UAH, 991/6138/22 760/25235/19 – 80 million UAH, 991/2177/19 – UAH 70 million), or after a reduction in the amount of collateral during the decision to continue the detention of the suspect. For example, in the case of 991/72226/24, the pledge in the amount of UAH 65 million was not made, but subsequently after reducing the amount to UAH 20 million for the respective suspect (case 991/382/25). In the case of 991/13893/24, the pledge in the amount of UAH 10 million was not made, but subsequently after reducing it to UAH 6 million on the suspected funds (case 991/945/25). It also happened that after the appeal of half from UAH 70 million to the state income for the suspect, more than UAH 40 million of collateral was added (the case 991/1114/20).
Therefore, the failure of the collateral may not always indicate the lack of funds for its payment. For some pledge means to reveal the existence of hidden assets, which prompts not to pay, and for the other – not a desire to pay it due to the fear that in the case of condemnation, the relevant funds can confiscate (this is, for example, when an article is declared suspicion, confiscation). In addition, there are people who prefer to sit in a pre -trial detention center, but do not make a pledge, hoping that during the next continuation of the pre -trial detention in the form of detention, they will reduce the amount of pledge and then they will pay for smaller money, and will leave the saved for further life.
Conclusions The investigation of cases in which appealed on appeal shows that in 3 out of 4 cases (299 of 408 cases) the pledge amount for suspected Anticorruption Court was determined in the amounts exceeding the limits determined by the criminal procedural law. This is not a violation, since this possibility of the Criminal Procedure Code allows.
Moreover, the statistics do not indicate the existence of any distortion of practice in favor of determining excessive pledge, due to the inability of which suspects would be forced to be in a pre -trial detention center, since the law does not specify the relationship between the number of decisions, when the pledge is determined within the limits and their quantity. The above is logical, because at the level of the law it is not possible to determine what the number of suspected cases of top corruption, which are able to pay the pledge in one amount or another. Each case requires an individual and careful study, the results of which the judge determines for a specific suspect it is sufficient to set 908 thousand UAH of collateral or 200 million or other amount.
Under no circumstances of high -ranking officials and other persons suspected of high -ranking corruption, the cases of which the Anti -Corruption Court are being considered by their property condition cannot be equated with average Ukrainians. This is confirmed by hundreds of cases of making significant amounts of collateral.
For six years of work, the European Court of Human Rights has never made a decision stating that the Supreme Anti -Corruption Court has determined the excellent amount of pledge to any of the suspects. On the contrary, in the decision of “Alaperin v. Ukraine” (paragraph 52), this court praised the work of the Anti -Corruption Court in the case of 991/1114/20, having come to the conclusion that his appeal did not violate paragraph 3 of Art. 5 of the Convention in determining the amount of collateral, which was originally paid in the amount over 40 million UAH.
Thus, over six years of activity, the High Anti -Corruption Court proved its devotion to human rights and effectiveness in monitoring the control of human rights abuse during the pre -trial investigation into the issue of determining the suspect.
Mykola Glotov, Spoker Judge, Judge of the Appeal Chamber of the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court
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