Partner of ESQUIRES Opanas Karlin(Afanasiy Karlin) spoke at the IV All-Ukrainian Conference on Criminal Law and Procedure, which was held on 9th and 10th of November at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Kyiv.
The lawyer shared his experience of using the institution of association and separation of criminal proceedings. He focused the audience’s attention on the procedural risks of the non-use of the association (or unreasonable segregation) of criminal proceedings for the defense side focused on, in particular:
– the verdict against one of the presumable accomplices may have prejudicial meaning for the other accomplice, which will significantly complicate the defense;
– violation of the right to refuse of self-disclosure (in one case a person may be a suspect, and in another – a witness)
– application of several preventive measures to one suspect (in different proceedings)
– condemnation of accomplices in various articles, etc.
Also, in practice, there are cases of the abuse by the Prosecutors of the right to separate proceedings in order to avoid the performance of procedural duties or for the “safe” collect “necessary” evidence for the prosecution to.
Although the decision to merge and separate criminal proceedings is made on the basis of “necessity” (internal conviction of the prosecutor) and cannot be appealed, defenders are advised to monitor more closely the movement of associations and separation of proceedings for their clients, use this information to provide an assessment of the evidence collected in each of such proceedings, as well as initiate the associations of criminal proceedings in the prosecutor’s office or in court, if it is beneficial for the defense.
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