Justice without punishment: how top figures and judges massively avoid responsibility through statutes of limitations

What do the cases of the former head of the State Judicial Administration, a Kharkiv judge, an accomplice of Nasirov, the former chief architect of Kyiv, and the CEO of a scandalous developer have in common?

That’s right — they were all closed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

This is reported by Ukrainska Pravda.

In particular, in July 2026, the court closed the case against former State Fiscal Service official Lyudmyla Solotva, who was accused of aiding former SFS head Roman Nasirov. Ten years had passed since the crime was committed, so the statute of limitations had expired.

A similar story involves judge Serhiy Lazyuk of the Dzerzhynskyi District Court in Kharkiv, who was accused of bribery. He also escaped punishment due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. This is despite the fact that the High Anti-Corruption Court had sentenced him in 2022 to seven years in prison with confiscation of property. However, after the verdict, in 2023, the judge was mobilized into the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As a result, the proceedings were suspended. For two years, nothing happened in the case, and ultimately, in November 2025, the statute of limitations expired.

Another example is Zenoviy Kholodnyuk, a figure in the “Vovk tapes” and former head of the State Judicial Administration. He avoided possible punishment for abuse of influence. Kholodniuk was accused of facilitating the appointment of a candidate loyal to OASK head Pavlo Vovk to the position of member of the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine. In this case, the court was also forced to close the proceedings due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

The same applies to the case of former chief architect of Kyiv Serhiy Tselovalnyk and CEO of the scandalous developer “Ukrbud Development” Oleh Mayboroda. According to the prosecution, Kyiv authorities leased land in the city center to a private company to build a residential building with a swimming pool for Secondary School No. 130. After a few years, construction stopped due to lack of funds, but later the developer resumed the project. Instead of the promised swimming pool for schoolchildren, a multi-level parking lot appeared, from which the private company earned illegal profits. However, due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, the case was closed.

And if you think this only concerns high-profile corruption cases where defendants can usually afford expensive lawyers who know how to drag out the process, that is far from true.

Here are similar examples from the regions in recent times:

- in Zhytomyr, the court closed a bribery case against a former head of the regional State GeoCadastre that had been under review for 10 years;

- in Kirovohrad region, the court closed a case against a village head accused of bribery and illegal land leasing. It had dragged on since 2016;

- in Lviv, the court closed a case against a tax official accused of receiving several bribes and fraud;

- in Kropyvnytskyi, the court closed a case against a judge of the Fortech District Court accused of fraud.

The reason was the same — the statute of limitations had expired. And there are dozens, if not hundreds, of such examples.

Closing a case does not always mean that guilt was not proven or that there was no corpus delicti — that is, exonerating grounds. Often, criminal proceedings are closed precisely because the statute of limitations has expired. In such cases, we effectively lose the opportunity to determine whether the defendant is guilty or not. The state is left to release the person from liability, and it is no longer possible to punish them, even if guilt were proven. The exception is if the defendant themselves expresses a desire for their case to be considered to the end and a verdict issued. But even if the court finds them guilty, the defendant will still be released from punishment due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. So the defense has nothing to lose in such a review.

Transparency International Ukraine, in its report on six years of HACC operations, notes that in 2024–2025, 13 people were released from criminal liability due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, and over the next three years, another 26 corruption cases are at risk of being closed.

Moreover, as stated by the head of the Verkhovna Rada Anti-Corruption Committee, Anastasiya Radina, SAPO refers about 120 cases to the HACC each year, but the court issues only about 70 verdicts. By the end of 2025, 327 cases remained pending at the HACC, with 60% of them under review for more than a year. Since 2019, 64 cases have already been closed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, and the average time for consideration in two instances is about three years.

So how are the time limits calculated, what do they depend on, and when are they suspended?

The starting point in all criminal cases is the day the criminal offense was committed, which depends on the specifics of each crime. For example, in a bribery case, the time limit is counted from the moment the money is received, while in a case of declaring false information, it is counted from the day the declaration with “false” data is submitted.

The duration of the time limits also depends on the severity of the criminal offense. The state has only five years from the date of the offense to issue a verdict for a minor crime, while a person can be punished for receiving a bribe in a particularly large amount within 15 years.

At first glance, the time limits seem quite long — in 5, 10, or 15 years, one can finish school or university or rise to a leadership position from scratch. That is why the European Convention, in Article 6, places the rights of the accused first. This provision regulates the right to a fair trial, one component of which is a reasonable time for considering the case. In the understanding of the European Court, “rubber” processes put the accused in a state of uncertainty, as life under criminal prosecution deteriorates significantly, and rights and freedoms are restricted. Therefore, the state has an obligation to meet the deadlines, which must necessarily exist but are not always sufficient.

Our procedural legislation provides certain safeguards in case the suspect or accused behaves improperly. For example, if a person commits a new crime of a certain type before the statute of limitations expires, the running of the limitation period is interrupted. And if the offender evades investigation or trial, the time limits are suspended. Currently, NABU is searching for defendants in 60 corruption cases. The oldest open wanted notice on the website appeared 10 years ago — in a case involving the theft of gas from Ukrgazvydobuvannya worth UAH 3 billion. In that case, if there were no legislative mechanism, the statute of limitations would already be “burning out.”

But not all defendants flee abroad, and not everyone commits a new crime while under the scrutiny of investigators. During the full-scale invasion, another way to avoid punishment appeared — “voluntary” mobilization into the Defense Forces of Ukraine. In simpler terms, those accused of corruption hide from justice in the army. According to the Criminal Procedure Code, the court suspends the consideration of a case if the accused is mobilized and resumes hearings only after their release from military service. At the same time, the statute of limitations for bringing to justice continues to run. Due to this feature, dozens of people accused of corruption may avoid potential punishment.

The time limits continue to run until the verdict enters into legal force — and there is an important nuance here. When the media write that the HACC convicted someone to so many years in prison, it does not yet mean that the verdict has entered into legal force.

Back in 1999, the Constitutional Court examined the phenomenon of parliamentary immunity and at the same time determined that bringing to criminal liability has several stages and begins from the moment of notification of suspicion and ends with the verdict entering into legal force. And our legislation clearly provides that a verdict enters into legal force either after the expiration of the time limit for appeal or after the final decision in the appellate instance.

And until this “verdict entering into legal force,” one of the most complex games of the defense begins.

How cases are dragged out: from “playing the fool” to multi-move combinations

There are countless ways to drag out the consideration of a case for years. The most primitive are abuses of procedural rights: fictitious sick leaves, invented valid reasons for non-appearance, communication failures, sudden busyness of the lawyer in another case, unfounded challenges and motions, and much more. But there are also more monumental and original methods.

Abuse of the right to defense, or more precisely, endless replacements of lawyers. Yes, the right to defense is absolute, and defendants know this well. Therefore, they constantly search for “a person close to them in spirit,” sometimes changing lawyers dozens of times during the consideration of the case. Already convicted former judge Lyudmyla Saltan once replaced her defender right during a hearing: he was waiting for her SMS outside the courtroom door, and when he entered, he even misspelled his client’s surname in the contract.

Such replacements turn into a huge problem because new defenders each time need time to familiarize themselves with the numerous materials — especially if there are several defendants. For example, in the OASK case, there are nine of them, and each sometimes has two defenders.

In the same OASK case, one of the defendants, already at the pre-trial investigation stage, hired a lawyer with visual impairments and demanded that 220 volumes of materials be translated for him in Braille. And during the trial, one hearing was disrupted because the defender did not come to the hearing as he had taken his child to a water park.

Military service, the desire for which often arises during criminal prosecution. And it arises not at all nobly — but to suspend the proceedings and drag out the consideration. The problem is that in the case of mobilization, the statute of limitations does not stop along with the proceedings. And even if the accused can technically participate in hearings during service, it does not mean that they will appear. Communication problems, urgent tasks during service — and the hearing is postponed again.

Former Kyiv appeals court judge Ihor Petryk, who was caught taking a $5,000 bribe, was mobilized back in 2022. The consideration of the case was suspended until May 2023, but Petryk did not leave service and obstructed justice in other ways: constant postponements of hearings due to air raids, sick leaves, replacements of defenders. Petryk also had other unforeseen circumstances. For example, the transport he was traveling to court in broke down. And once, Petryk allegedly left his bag on a minibus and spent the entire time allotted for the hearing traveling around the city looking for that minibus. The cherry on top was the postponement of hearings due to a “combat” wound that Petryk actually received during an unauthorized abandonment of his military unit.

By the way, as the court found out, air raids mattered to Petryk only during hearings. When they ended, he freely walked around the city instead of sitting in a shelter. This was confirmed by an analysis of his phone connections compared with the air raid map: the judge almost never hid. Petryk has now been taken into custody, and the case has moved faster. The verdict was delivered on July 9, but there is still an appeal ahead, which must be completed by the beginning of December.

Due to such “strategic decisions,” among the cases against judges monitored by Avtomaidan, the following remain at risk of closure in the next two years:

● the case of judge Roman Potapenko, who, according to the prosecution, on August 15, 2017, received a bribe from lawyer Anatoliy Voronkin for issuing an acquittal. The indictment was sent to court on January 23, 2018, and in May 2022 Potapenko was put on the wanted list; the time limits were suspended for a year. When Potapenko was found, the consideration resumed, but there is still no verdict, and very little time remains — until August 15, 2027;

● the case of judge Ihor Minayev, which has already been suspended in the appeals court for four years. According to the prosecutor’s office, on September 26, 2017, he received a bribe for not bringing a person to administrative liability. On September 5, 2018, the case was already in court. The HACC delivered a verdict on February 4, 2022; the appeal is frozen, and the time limits expire on September 26, 2027;

● the case of judge Hennadiy Moliboha and lawyer Ihor Syerikov, who are accused of receiving a bribe on December 14, 2017, for not bringing a person to administrative liability. On August 6, 2018, the indictment was sent to court; on December 2, 2025, the HACC delivered a verdict, and the time limits expire on December 14, 2027. The case is now in the appeals court, but Moliboha has stopped appearing at hearings — for which he received monetary fines — and has stopped responding to communications due to the proximity of his location to the front line.

*We deliberately indicate specific dates. They show that law enforcement officers in these cases did not delay — they completed the investigation and transfer of materials to court within a year. However, even such efficiency of detectives and prosecutors did not save the cases from the threat of closure. That is, the problem often arises precisely during the trial and depends on the behavior of the defense.

The problem has no statute of limitations. So how to solve it?

Analyzing the reasons for closing cases due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, we come to the conclusion that a systematic and comprehensive approach is needed here.

First of all, it is necessary to influence the behavior of participants, in particular the defense: endless non-appearances without reason, fictitious sick leaves and vacations, unfounded challenges and motions. To do this, it is worth expanding the levers of influence already available to the court in the legislation.

Currently, if the accused does not appear on a court summons, a monetary fine is imposed on them. This is a good tool, but in corruption cases and taking into account the financial situation of their defendants, it is not very effective. The amount of such “fines” ranges from 0.5 (UAH 1,664) to 2 (UAH 6,656) subsistence minimums. For defendants in multi-billion schemes, people’s deputies, ministers, and other top officials, this amount is not very noticeable. Therefore, to enhance the effectiveness of monetary fines, their indexation would be fair, taking into account the real economic situation in the country, the person, and the property status of the offender, as is successfully practiced when determining the amount of bail in top corruption cases.

There is another mechanism — disciplinary proceedings against prosecutors or lawyers, in particular for missing court hearings. Unfortunately, judges rarely use it, and so far it has not shown real effectiveness, although it has potential. Professional participants in the process should feel reputational risks when they choose as their strategy not a convincing evidence base but deliberate dragging out of the process. In our opinion, it is precisely the threat of disciplinary action for a prosecutor or loss of the right to practice law that should deter the desire to abuse procedural rights. However, in practice, out of dozens of appeals by HACC judges regarding lawyers, only a few have been held accountable.

If “small steps” on the path to dragging out can be combated with measures already provided for in procedural legislation, then with mobilization into the Armed Forces, the situation is somewhat different, but still solvable.

On June 26, people’s deputies submitted draft law No. 15354 to the Verkhovna Rada, which proposes to suspend the statute of limitations for the duration of military service of defendants in cases investigated by NABU detectives or already referred to court by SAPO prosecutors. It is proposed to resume the running of the time limits either from the moment of release from military service or from the moment the proceedings are resumed by the court.

Such amendments to the Criminal Law will be fair. Because the desire to serve Ukraine should arise from sincere intentions and patriotism, not from the desire to avoid justice.

There is also a second proposal — it is aimed at combating the global problem of closing cases due to the expiration of the statute of limitations specifically in corruption proceedings. The idea is to suspend the running of the statute of limitations for serious and especially serious corruption crimes from the moment the indictment is sent to court. According to the lawmakers, this will deprive defendants of the opportunity and sense to drag out the consideration of the case, because the result will inevitably come, regardless of their behavior. And so that the prosecution does not abuse this and does not submit low-quality materials, it is proposed to resume the time limit if the court returns the indictment for revision.

This initiative is important both for Ukraine’s European course and for justice and strengthening anti-corruption bodies. After all, the danger of corruption offenses lies precisely in the resources — finances and connections — that allow subjects to evade justice for years and feel comfortable doing so.

However, it is necessary to properly assess the risks. Because if the statute of limitations is suspended from the moment the indictment is sent to court, this could lead to discussions and lawsuits to the ECtHR from defendants. The reason is the same Article 6 of the Convention and the way our statutes of limitations are currently structured. If they are suspended only at the final stage — that is, when the verdict enters into legal force — then their suspension in selected cases at other, earlier stages may look like inconsistency on the part of the legislator and a violation of the Convention.

Therefore, the norms should be drafted in such a way that they are consistent with the concept of a reasonable time for considering a case. States parties to the Convention have broad discretion in reforming their own legislation, in particular regarding statutes of limitations. The only restriction concerns the prohibition of applying such changes to acts for which the time limit has already expired at the time the new legislative provisions enter into force.

For example, Italy has a unique two-tier system where the main statute of limitations is suspended after the verdict of the first instance (the so-called “Bonafede Law”). At the same time, the duration of appeals and cassation is limited by strict deadlines (the so-called “Cartabia reform”).

Such frameworks for reviewing cases appeared so that the accused would not turn into a “lifelong defendant”: if the appellate or cassation courts do not meet these deadlines, the case is considered procedurally inadmissible — which effectively means its closure. Instead, the verdict of the court of first instance immediately and forever suspends the running of the main statute of limitations.

The judicial process in Ukraine is an extremely complex mechanism. It withstands a heavy workload, power outages, air raids, and other objective factors that already take a lot of time on the path to fair and well-founded decisions. Therefore, it is so important at the legislative level to prevent tricks and manipulations to drag out consideration — both on the part of the defense and on the part of the prosecution. We would like to see zero tolerance from the court for such antics and the development of mechanisms to counter them — both those already provided for in our procedural legislation and potentially new norms that will strengthen the court’s ability to counter abuses of procedural rights.

And may justice prevail through the years.

Author: Darya Nosik, lawyer at the “Avtomaydan” NGO