NABU, SAPO expose scheme of illegal access to restricted court decisions
NABU and SAPO have notified two lawyers and the de facto head of a bar association of suspicion of unauthorized access to the closed part of the Unified State Register of Court Decisions.
As established, in August 2022, the suspects gained access to the restricted court decision register and systematically used this data for automated retrieval of information on court rulings regarding motions from law enforcement agencies and the prosecutor's office. A special script was developed for this purpose, which collected data and the content of new court rulings every 12 hours concerning the lawyers’ clients and allowed manual searches in the register.
Court decisions obtained through both functions were used by the lawyers in their activities. Specifically, the suspects monitored judges' rulings on authorizations for searches and other investigative actions to warn their clients. The illegally obtained data was used to prepare for investigative actions, destroy physical evidence and documents, and help the lawyers' clients evade criminal liability.
As a result of this criminal scheme, 39,615 search queries were made and 7,572 court decisions were accessed.
Legal qualification: Part 2 Article 376-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
According to Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, a person is considered not-guilty in the commission of a crime and cannot be subject to criminal punishment until he or she is found guilty by court.