The court overturned judgement with regard to the former Director of the armor plant accused of declaring false information

On November 19, 2020, the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) overturned judgement concerning the former Director of State Enterprise “Lviv Bronetankovyi Zavod” State Enterprise, Roman Tymkiv, who had previously been found guilty of declaring false information. This became possible due to the decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine’s (CCU) dated 27.10.2020 No. 13-p/2020 which abolished the responsibility for declaring false data. On May 27^th, 2020, the HACC found the official guilty of entering false information into declarations (Article 36-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). Former Director of “Lviv Bronetankovyi Zavod” SE, Roman Tymkiv, pursuant to the sentence, failed to indicate “Aventa Investment Limited” company (Belize) with the charter fund of USD 50,000.00 and an apartment in Vienna (Austria) owned by his relative, in his declarations in 2017–2018. Director of “Lviv Bronetankovyi Zavod” pleaded absolutely and unreservedly guilty of committing a criminal offence. Despite this, a week after the CCU’s decision, Roman Tymkiv appealed to the court to acquit him due to the lack of essential signs of a criminal offence in his actions. In the process of the court hearings, the defendant’s attorney, Volodymyr Zhukov, confirmed the fact of false declaration once again: “Yes, the defendant indeed failed to indicate his property in the declaration. Such actions, however, do not generally have, and have never had elements of being very dangerous or socially-dangerous both for society and for the state, other legal entities or individuals”.  However, due to the CCU’s decision repealing liability for declaring false information, the HACC overturned a judgement concerning Roman Tymkiv. As a reminder, on November 17 the HACC based on the of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine’s decision, already cancelled the judgement concerning the former Judge of the Court of Appeals of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Nadiia Posunsia, who was found guilty of deliberate failure to submit her declaration. Following the CCU’s decision the judgement is being appealed by the former Member of Parliament, Hennadiy Bobov, found guilty of declaring false information on his wife’s companies and property for the total amount of UAH 57 million. Proceedings in Bobov’s case will be held at 11:30 on November 19. At 13.30 on November 26, former Judge of the Court of Appeals of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Zoia Ponomar, will be appealing the judgement against her in the HACC. On May 28, 2020, the court found her guilty of deliberate failure to submit declarations for 2017-2018. Due to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine’s decision, it is now impossible to bring persons who indicated false information in their declarations for previous years to liability. From May, 2020, the NACP identified declaring false information in 97 declarations. In total, starting from 2015, 4 712 criminal proceedings on false information in declarations have been registered. 1 239 of them were submitted to courts with criminal complaints. All cases not yet considered by the court will be closed.