Court Compels SBI to Investigate Sytnyk for Contempt of Constitutional Court Decree (DOCUMENT)
A court has granted a complaint by the TV presenter Dmytro Spivak accusing NABU Director Artem Sytnyk of usurping power and compelled the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) to register the relevant data in the Uniform Register of Pretrial Investigations. If convicted, Sytnyk potentially faces a long time behind bars
Yesterday, 7 October 2020, the Shevchenkivskiy District Court of Kiev reviewed a complaint by a lawyer representing the TV presenter Dmytro Spivak against a failure by the SBI to register within 24 hours the relevant data in the Uniform Register of Pretrial Investigations (URPI) and open a case based on Spivak's report of wrongdoing by NABU Director Sytnyk. The TV presenter had filed an earlier complaint alleging usurpation of power and abuse of power by Artem Sytnyk as a consequence of his failure to comply with a decree by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine finding his appointment non-constitutional. The SBI has, however, failed to register the relevant data in the URPI or launch a pretrial investigation into the violations of the law reported in the complaint and prosecutable under Section 1 of Article 109, Section 2 of Article 353, Section 1 of Article 364 and Section 4 of Article 382 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The court has ordered the State Bureau of Investigations to enter the relevant data into the URPI. The court order is final and not subject to appeal. If the court finds Sytnyk guilty he potentially faces time in prison. In particular, Section 1 of Article 109 Actions Aimed at Seizing Power by Force or Conspiracy to Perpetrate Such Actions carries five to ten years in prison with or without property confiscation.
Just as a reminder, the SBI has launched a criminal investigation, №4779ЗKP, based on a complaint by the TV presenter Dmytro Spivak under Article 366-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The Director of the National Anticorruption Bureau (NABU) is charged with the sale of a land plot in Sevastopol under Russian law for USD 40 thousand, which the NABU Director has failed to declare. This article carries up to 2 years in prison.
