Published on 22 November 2021

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 22790/19 Stanislav Fedorovych DENYSYUK against Ukraine lodged on 6 April 2019 communicated on 3 November 2021

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns alleged incompatibility of covert investigative measures ( негласні слідчі (розшукові) дії ) to which the applicant was subjected within the framework of criminal proceedings against him with his rights guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention.

The applicant, a former high-ranking official in the tax administration, is a defendant in ongoing criminal proceedings, which concern, in substance, a complex large-scale corruption scheme implicating numerous defendants.

On 8 October 2018 the General Prosecutor’s Office notified the applicant by post that covert investigation measures had been implemented regarding him in the course of the investigation of his case. Subsequently he was additionally informed that the measures at issue were comprised of “audio and video surveillance of an [unspecified] place”; that the material collected had no evidential value; and that it had therefore been destroyed.

The applicant, who suspected that he had been subjected to surveillance while being held in a remand facility, during his meetings with his lawyers, filed numerous unsuccessful requests with the prosecutor’s office and the judicial authorities seeking further information and demanding how the confidentiality of his lawyer-client communications was preserved in connection with the covert measures in issue. These requests were either ignored or turned down, essentially, as not based on law and concerning classified or deleted information. The most recent relevant document on file is a letter from the Kyiv Court of Appeal dated 18 March 2019, informing the applicant that the court is unable to inform him concerning the date and content of its ruling authorising the covert surveillance measures.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Has the applicant exhausted all effective domestic remedies, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention (compare, for example, Zubkov and Others v. Russia , nos. 29431/05 and 2 others, §§ 88-99, 7 November 2017);

2. Has there been a violation of the applicant’s rights guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention? In particular, were the covert investigative measures ordered in his respect lawful and necessary in a democratic society?