The High Anti-Corruption Court has documented violations during the Rotterdam+ case proceedings
International observers have documented a number of procedural violations and risks during the “Rotterdam+” case proceedings at Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court. This refers to observations by the IAC ISHR monitoring mission, which noted a number of procedural issues during the court proceedings. According to the mission, the identified factors may influence the course of the case and the assessment of the judicial process.
As noted, these circumstances may indicate risks of non-compliance with the principles of adversarial proceedings and equality of the parties as understood under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In particular, the mission’s observers drew attention to the manner in which the prosecution presented complex financial and economic evidence.
Hearing on May 25
During the hearing on May 25, the prosecutor repeatedly approached the bench and provided the court with additional explanations regarding the content of the materials, while other participants in the proceedings were unable to fully hear such explanations and noted that it was unclear to them exactly which circumstances the prosecution was referring to. Only after these remarks did the prosecutor return to his seat and continue presenting the materials.
In the opinion of the mission’s experts, this procedure effectively made it impossible for the defense to receive part of the explanations in a timely manner, which poses a risk of procedural imbalance.
Separately, it was noted that on May 25, the hearing took place in the absence of the defense counsel for two of the defendants—despite the fact that on that very day, the prosecution was directly examining complex financial and economic evidence.
The May 29 hearing
At the May 29 hearing, the defense explicitly expressed concern that certain actions and remarks by the court were effectively perceived by it as assisting the prosecution in clarifying and structuring its position during the presentation of evidence.
The court itself, in both hearings, repeatedly drew the prosecutor’s attention to insufficient preparation, recommended that he prepare a written position on complex financial and economic materials, and emphasized the need to more clearly link the evidence to specific elements of the indictment.
The defense also noted that the prosecutor was referring to materials that had not yet been directly examined by the court, and that at the time the defense raised its objections, not all relevant documents were available to the court in a visually accessible form.
Mission Conclusions
The IAC ISHR mission does not classify the recorded circumstances as a clear violation of Article 6 of the ECHR at this stage of the proceedings, but recommends that the case be subject to further monitoring.
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