The Ukrainian Legal Foundation

The Ukrainian Legal Foundation was formed in 1992 with the purpose of assisting all sectors of the legal profession in Ukraine to transform themselves into a modern profession capable of meeting the above challenges. In order to do so, the Ukrainian Legal Foundation will initiate and coordinate a series of major initiatives and smaller projects over a period of four years.

The Ukrainian Legal Foundation was formed through the initiative of the Association of Ukrainian Lawyers. The Association of the Ukrainian Lawyers is an independent association in Ukraine with approximately 500 members from the various regions of Ukraine who represent all aspects of the legal profession. Its membership includes members of the Supreme Council, lawyers in private practice, professors of law faculties, researchers at legal Institutes, members of the procuracy and employees of the Ministry of Justice. The Association of Ukrainian Lawyers was incorporated in 1990 to work for legal reform in Ukraine.

Although the Ukrainian Legal Foundation was formed through the initiative of the Association of Ukrainian Lawyers. Its mandate is to work with all the major legal groups in Ukraine. The board of directors is composed of representatives of the three major lawyers’organisations in Ukraine which are the Union of Ukrainian Jurists, the Union of Ukrainian Advocates and the Association of Ukrainian lawyers. The board of directors is assisted by council and support from a highly representative Honourary Board of Counsellors whose membership is drawn from the Ministry of Justice, the faculties of law, institutes of law, the procuracy and the Supreme Council. The foundation is also aided by an advisory board of foreign experts.

The work of the Foundation has been made possible by a very generous grant in the sum of one and one quarter million dollars from George Soros, founder of the Soros Group of Foundations, and the Karl Popper Foundation in Switzerland. The Soros Foundations were formed to assist the creation of democratic states and civil society hi the countries of Eastern and Central Europe.

ІV studying year, І term

Theme 6: text “Bodies of Prosecution and Advocacy”

1. READ AND TRANSLATE THE TEXTS.

2. RETELL THE SECOND TEXT.

BODIES OF PROSECUTION, ADVOCACY & JUSTICE OF UKRAINE

Ukraine’s Law Enforcement Agencies have the following stucture:

1. The Prosecutor’s Office

2. The Ministry of Internal Affairs

3. The National Security

4. Advocacy

5. The Ministry of Justice

6. The Notary Servise Board

 

The Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine fulfils such functionc as: supervision under the execution of all laws by all state and civil institutions, enterprises, establishments, officials and citizens (i.e. general supervision); supervision under the execution of all laws by the bodies which struggle against

infringement of the law and other crimes;backing of the state prosecution in trial;presentation of citizen’s or state’s interests in trial;supervision under the execution of laws in the places of confinement. The Prosecutor’s Office activity is based on such principles as: centralization,independence, defence of citizen’s rights on the basis of “Equal Justice Under Law”, glasnost, unity, and legality.

Bodies of the Prosecutor’s Office are headed by the General Prosecutor and include: Prosecutor’s Office of Crimean Autonomous Republic; Prosecutor’s Offices of oblasts (city, district, interdistrict); Kyiv’s Prosecutor’s Office;Sevastopol’s Prosecutor’s Office;Transport Prosecutor’s Office;Military Prosecutor’s Office of regions;Military Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine’s.

Advocacy

Advocacy is a voluntary professional association aimed to assist in the defence of rights, freedoms, and to present lawful interests of the citizens of Ukraine, foreign citizens,people without citizenship, legal entities,to provide them with anyjuridical help. There are such organizational forms of advocate’s activity in Ukraine, as: the Union of advocate’s of Ukraine; advocate’s firms; college of barristers; advocate’s

Offices; advocate’s bureaus and individual activity.We can define such general trends of advocate’s activity as:providing advisory services on juridical questions;drawing up of applications, complaints and other legal documents; presentation in trial and other state institutions; supplying different enterprises, institutions and organizations with juridical help; realization of legal protection of citizen’s business undertakings and legal entities, etc.

Every advocate must know his official duties, which are as follows: to keep to the current legislation underswervingly; to use all envisaged by law means of defence of citizen’s and legal entity’s rights and interests;an advocate has no right to use his authority to harm the person whose interests he presents;an advocate has no right to break down the defence of a suspected, defendant or convicted, once accepted by him; an advocate is obliged to keep lawyer’s secret, he has no right to use it in his interests or in the interests of the third person.

Justice

The Judicial system of Ukraine can be presented with the help of such a scheme:

1. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine

2. The Courts of General Jurisdictions

3. The Court ofArbitration (economic)

4. The International Commercial Courts of Arbitration

All these bodies of justice settle disputes about rights, which appear in such spheres of social life, as:creation of laws (the Constitutional Court); business undertakings’ activity and administration (the Courts of Arbitration); legal relations of citizens with each other and with legal entities, and also in case of committing a crime (the Courts of General Jurisdiction); disputes which appear in a sphere of the international trade (the International Comm ercial Courts of Arbitration).The Courts of General Jurisdiction consist of such links, as: the first link - district courts, okrug courts, interdistrict courts, military courts of garrisons;the second link - the Supreme Court of the Crimean Autonomous Republic, courts of oblasts, Kyiv’s and Sevastopol’s city courts, military courts of regions and Ukraine’s NAVY;the third link - the Supreme Court of Ukraine.Separate links of the judicial system cooperate with each other. Depending on their terms of reference they may act as the Court of the first instance, appeal instance and supervision instance.As for the court instances it should be mentioned that there exist 3 of them in the Ukrainian judicial system. They are:Courts of the first instance - the courts which hear cases and bring in a verdict (guilty, not guilty, not proven...);Courts of the second or appeal instance - the courts which check up on a complaint the rightness of a verdict brought in by the courts of the first instance, if the sentence is not carried into effect (these can only be the courts of the second or third links); Courts of the third or supervision instance - the courts which check up the rightness of the verdicts which have already been carried into effect (these can only be the Presidiums of the Oblasts Courts, and courts equal to them, the Judicial Boards, the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Ukraine).The Constitutional Court of Ukraine is the only body of the constitutional jurisdiction in Ukraine (article 47). The main task of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is to guarantee supremacy of the Constitution as the main law of the state on the whole territory of Ukraine. Activity of the Constitutional Court is based on such principles as: independence, completeness and thoroughness of the cases heard; glasnost; the judgement of the court must be well-grounded; equal rights of the judges; supremacy of law. The Constitutional Court consists of 18 judges. They are appointed by: the President of Ukraine (6 judges);the VerkhovnaRadaofUkraine (6 judges);the Congress of Judges of Ukraine (6 judges).