Scandal with "Wiretapping": NABU exposed lawyers leaking confidential court decisions

On the morning of April 1, information began to spread through the network that the NABU had been wiretapping a Kyiv law office.

This was reported by "Court Reporter".

The publication "UNN" with reference to sources reported that the surveillance device was installed in a negotiation room where lawyers discussed defense strategies with clients. The clients whose conversations were recorded were objects of investigations by the bureau itself.

"For about a month, NABU detectives recorded and listened to conversations in the lawyer’s office in the city center. The wiretap was discovered by the lawyers themselves - it was embedded in the floor of the lower floor, which the detectives rented specifically for this purpose.

... At the time of the wiretapping, there were no criminal proceedings against the lawyers. And only after the wiretap was discovered, on the same day, NABU detectives urgently registered a criminal proceeding on the grounds of alleged interference by the lawyers in electronic systems" — the publication states.

The article concluded with predictions of serious consequences, such as a collapse of trust in NABU, international condemnation, and risk to the legal profession.

By the evening of April 1, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office officially announced suspicions of illegal access to closed court decisions against two lawyers and the actual head of the law association.

Since August 2022, these lawyers allegedly had access to the closed register of court decisions and systematically used it to find out the results of the courts’ consideration of law enforcement and prosecution requests.

A special script collected data and content of new court decisions regarding the lawyers’ clients every 12 hours and allowed manual search in the register.

Thus, the lawyers monitored judges’ rulings on granting permits for searches and other investigative actions to warn their clients and ensure the destruction of material evidence and documents.

One of the lawyers’ names appeared in the media — former deputy chief military prosecutor Dmytro Borzykh.

Unraveling the thread, further details were discovered. The criminal proceeding regarding unauthorized access to the registry has actually been investigated since 2023. Contrary to the article’s claim on "UNN" that the lawyers were wiretapped without any criminal proceedings and only registered it after the wiretap was found. The lawyers who were wiretapped were aware of this criminal proceeding, as they even challenged NABU’s investigative actions.

It is currently known that the access scheme to the closed part of the court registry could have been used in the criminal case of former Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Mykola Solskyi, who is suspected of seizing land in the Sumy region worth over 290 million UAH as part of an organized group of 13 people.

On October 4, 2023, an investigative judge of the Higher Anti-Corruption Court issued five rulings allowing searches of several residential and office premises in Solskyi’s case.

The bureau found out about the information leak regarding planned searches. Activities ceased immediately in one of the offices. The individual whose residence was to be searched reinstalled the Telegram and WhatsApp messengers and changed their mobile phone. Another individual, whose house was to be searched, also changed their mobile phone and reinstalled WhatsApp.

Under the login and password of a judge of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court in Kyiv, unidentified individuals searched the registry for case information on Solskyi. They reviewed 100 court decisions rendered in that criminal case.

On December 22, 2023, a HACC judge gave permission to search a Mercedes-Benz ML-Class car owned by Borzykh and his residence.

On the same day, HACC allowed searches at the residences of lawyers Serhiy Hadzhuk, Maksym Komarnytskyi, and Andriy Filyuk in the same case.

The icing on the cake was the sanction for searching the non-residential premises housing the Law Firm "Guarantee of Your Rights" (JSC "H.V.P."). About two dozen lawyers worked in this office, and they were not pleased with NABU’s visit.

The list of office users included these lawyers:

Maksym Komarnytskyi;

Denys Mikulin;

Vadym Savchak;

Ivan Prozorskyi;

Serhiy Hadzhuk;

Artem Svytka;

Oleksandr Boldin;

Oleksiy Trokhymenko;

Serhiy Dolhopolov;

Oleksandr Olenskyi;

Kyrylo Poznyak;

Yevheniy Hrabovskyi;

Vitaliy Opanasenko;

Andriy Filyuk;

Andriy Davydchenko;

Dmytro Borzykh;

Volodymyr Rakov (official head of JSC "Guarantee of Your Rights").

The vast majority of the lawyers on this list are former employees of the military and General Prosecutor’s Office.

On May 15, 2020, the former chief military prosecutor Anatoliy Matios and 14 other former prosecutors were issued lawyer’s certificates in one day. This was done by the Volyn Regional Bar Council.

Complaints from other lawyers regarding non-compliance with the admission procedure and the qualification exam, training, and more were received by the bar self-government bodies. A working group was formed to study these issues. The Higher Qualification-Disciplinary Commission of Bar revoked the exam results for former prosecutors. However, they appealed to the Kyiv District Administrative Court and the Volyn District Administrative Court and won the right to be lawyers.

Author: Iryna Saliy