Under martial law, the court has the right to pronounce only the operative part of the judgment, with the mandatory delivery of its full text

Under martial law, the court, having drafted and signed the full text of the judgment, has the right to pronounce only its operative part, with the obligation to deliver the full text of the judgment to the participants in the trial on the day of its pronouncement.

This was stated by the Criminal Cassation Court of the Supreme Court after considering the cassation appeal of the defence lawyer of a person sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment for theft (part 4, Article 185 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) and illegal acquisition and storage of a narcotic drug without the purpose of sale (part 1, Article 309 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

The defence lawyer noted, in particular, that after leaving the deliberation room, the panel of judges of the appellate instance confined themselves to the pronouncement of the introductory and operative parts of the judgment and proceeded to hear other cases that had been scheduled for consideration. Meanwhile, 10 minutes later, the defence lawyer and the convicted person, without leaving the courtroom, received the full text of the court of appeal's judgment without its pronouncement. According to the defence, this is a serious breach of the requirements of the criminal procedure law.

The Supreme Court disagreed with the defence lawyer's arguments and upheld the judgment of the court of appeal, stating the following reasons.

As can be seen from the entries in the court hearing journal and the technical record of the court hearing of the court of appeal of 6 April 2023, after leaving the deliberation room, the court of appeal pronounced the introductory and operative parts of the judgment with reference to part 15 of Article 615 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, which states that under martial law, after the full text of the judgment has been drafted and signed, the court has the right to confine itself to pronouncing its operative part with the mandatory delivery of the full text of the judgment to the participants in the proceedings on the day of its pronouncement.

Moreover, according to the documents available in the criminal case files, the convicted person and his defence lawyer received a copy of the full text of the judgment on the day it was issued by the court of appeal, i.e. 6 April 2023.

The Supreme Court stated that it did not see any violation of the requirements of the criminal procedural law by the court of appeal in this proceeding, since the pronouncement and delivery of a copy of the appealed court decision to the defence was carried out in compliance with the provisions of part 15 of Article 615 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine.

The Resolution of the panel of judges of the Third Judicial Chamber of the Criminal Cassation Court of the Supreme Court of 13 September 2023 in case No. 638/4224/22 - https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/113536486.

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