On April 10, 2024, the Second Senate of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine at its plenary session delivered the Decision in the case upon the constitutional complaint of Hanna Pleskach regarding the compliance of an individual provision of Article 459.1 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine (hereinafter, the “Code”) with the Constitution of Ukraine (constitutionality).
According to Article 459.1 of the Code, “court decisions that have entered into force may be reviewed due to newly discovered or exceptional circumstances”.
Having examined the issues raised in the constitutional complaint, the Court held that individual provision of Article 459.1 of the Code complies with the Constitution of Ukraine (is constitutional).
The judge-rapporteur in the case is Oleh Pervomaiskyi.
Hanna Pleskach appealed to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to verify the compliance of the individual provision of Article 459.1 of the Code, according to which court decisions that have entered into force may be reviewed due to newly discovered circumstances, with Articles 8.1, 24.1, 55.2, 129.2.1 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
The subject of the right to constitutional complaint stated that Article 459.1 of the Code contains a legislative prohibition “on the review due to newly discovered circumstances of rulings of investigating judges that is expressed in Article 459.1 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine by defining an exhaustive range of acts subject to such a review”.
In resolving the issues set out in the constitutional complaint, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine was guided by its previous legal positions on these issues, judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, provisions of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950, acts of international law, in particular Article 8 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, as well as the jurisprudence of constitutional courts of other states.
The Constitutional Court of Ukraine has consistently upheld the legal position that ensuring the right to judicial protection is one of the guarantees of the implementation of other constitutional rights and freedoms, their assertion and protection, in particular by restoration in case of their violation. At the same time, in order to ensure respect for the court, its decisions and the effectiveness of the entire judicial system in a state governed by the rule of law, it is crucial to comply with the principle of finality of a court decision (res judicata), which means, in particular, that no party to a case or other person, legally interested in the deliberation of a case, has the right to demand a review of a final and binding court decision only to rehear the case and delivery of a new court decision.
Given the fundamental principles of judicial proceedings and the need to observe the principle of the finality of a court decision, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine considers that, in contrast to an appellate review of a case and a cassation appeal of a court decision, the review of court decisions due to newly discovered circumstances is an extraordinary type of review of court decisions.
The Constitutional Court of Ukraine notes that observance of the principle of the finality of a court decision regarding rulings of investigating judges in the case of granting the right to review them due to newly discovered circumstances is possible only if there are substantial and convincing prerequisites for such a review and taking into account the need to comply with the requirements for reasonable terms of pre-trial investigation.
If a person tries to exercise the right to review the ruling of the investigating judge due to newly discovered circumstances in order to prevent the timely completion of the pre-trial investigation or for another purpose that is not consistent with the essence of reviewing court decisions due to newly discovered circumstances as an extraordinary type of reviewing court decisions, there are grounds for the conclusion that the right to such review should not be ensured by constitutional guarantees.
Taking into account the above, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine held that the contested provision of Article 459 of the Code does not contradict the provisions of Articles 8.1, 55.1, 55.2, 129.2 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
In this Decision, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine also stated that according to the impugned provision of the Code, participants in criminal proceedings have the same procedural rights to review, due to newly discovered circumstances, court decisions that have entered into force, in particular, decisions of an investigating judge at the stage of a pre-trial investigation and court decisions during a trial or implementation of other stages of criminal proceedings.
Therefore, the contested provision of Article 459 of the Code is formulated in line with the principle of legal equality as one of the principles of criminal judicial proceedings.
In view of the above, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine concluded that an individual provision of Article 459.1 of the Code does not contradict the provisions of Articles 21, 24.1, 24.2, 129.2.1 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
