February 27, 2026
On February 25, 2026, the Second Senate deliberated the case upon the constitutional complaint of Roman Dudin in the public part of the plenary session in the form of written proceedings.
During the plenary session, the Judge-Rapporteur in the case, Vasyl Lemak, a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, noted that the author of the complaint requested to verify the constitutionality of Article 182.5.5 of the Criminal Procedural Code of Ukraine (hereinafter, “the Code”), according to which “in exceptional cases, if the investigating judge the court establishes that bail within the specified limits is not sufficient to ensure that the person suspected or accused of committing a serious or particularly serious crime fulfills the obligations imposed on them, bail may be set at an amount exceeding eighty or three hundred times the minimum subsistence level for able-bodied persons, respectively.”
From the content of the constitutional complaint and the documents and materials attached thereto, it appears that Roman Dudin is accused of committing criminal offenses specified in Articles 111.2, 402.4, and 407.5 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Roman Dudin was held in custody from September 12, 2022, to November 13, 2024, without bail being set. By a ruling dated November 14, 2024, the Kyiv Court of Appeal applied an alternative preventive measure in the form of bail in the amount of 1,700 subsistence minimums for able-bodied persons, which amounts to UAH 5,147,600. At the request of the prosecutor, the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv, by a series of rulings, in particular that of August 11, 2025, extended the term of Roman Dudin's detention with the same bail amount. The defense attorneys acting on behalf of Roman Dudin appealed the rulings of the court of first instance. By its ruling of August 20, 2025, the Kyiv Court of Appeal dismissed Roman Dudin's appeal and left the ruling of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv dated August 11, 2025, unchanged.
The person entitled to file a constitutional complaint asserts that the absence of criteria for determining the amount of bail, as provided for in the fifth paragraph of part five of Article 182 of the Code, “leads to subjectivity on the part of judges and the possibility of manipulation,” as a result of which the amount of bail determined by the court in exceptional cases is sometimes unreasonably high compared to the amount of bail imposed on other persons in similar circumstances. In the opinion of the author of the petition, this contradicts the principle of equality guaranteed by Article 24 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
Roman Dudin also notes that the amount of bail determined by the court without established criteria and upper limits “has turned bail into unconditional imprisonment,” which has led to a violation of the right to liberty and the presumption of innocence guaranteed by Articles 29 and 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
The Judge-Rapporteur informed that in order to ensure a full and objective deliberation of the case and the delivery of justified decision by the Court, he had sent requests to the President of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, and members of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. The judges will be informed of the content of the positions expressed in the in-camera part of the plenary session.
After examining the case materials in the public part of the plenary session, the Court proceeded to the in-camera deliberations for a decision.
The plenary session of the Grand Chamber was attended by an authorized person acting on behalf of the subject of the constitutional complaint, lawyer Tetiana Ivanova, and other citizens of Ukraine.
The video recording of the plenary session is available on the Court’s official website in the Section “Archive of Video Broadcasts of Sessions”.
