As of today, December 11, Article 375 of the Criminal Code, which provides for the responsibility of judges for making a knowingly unjust decision, is no longer valid. That is, if earlier, in theory, when the judge made an unreasonable decision, law enforcement officers could take him up on it, but now it is basically impossible.
What is this rule of law and why was it removed?
The meaning of an unjust decision
Indeed, the criminal prosecution of the owners of mantles for knowingly unjust decisions, on the one hand, is intended to cleanse the domestic Themis of unscrupulous employees, and on the other hand, it can be used to put pressure on the court.
It is interesting that in Ukraine there is no clear indication of what constitutes an unjust decision. Article 375 of the Code does not establish the criteria by which it is possible to determine which sentence, decision, determination or ruling of a judge (judges) is considered "unlawful", and also the content of the combination of the words "knowingly unlawful" is not disclosed, which led to an ambiguous understanding of the composition of the crime , the qualification of which was carried out according to this norm.
For example, you can find a lot of reports on the Internet that the prosecutor's office, using the vague wording of the article, pressured the courts to make the decision necessary for law enforcement officers.
Why was the article canceled?
On June 11, 2020, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine declared Article 375 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine unconstitutional. In particular, due to the above-mentioned vague wording, as well as due to the fact that there were the above-described risks of pressure on the judge.
Then it was noted that "the KSU considers it expedient to postpone the termination of this article for six months from the date of the Court's decision on its unconstitutionality, in connection with which the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine must bring the normative regulation established by this article into compliance with the Constitution of Ukraine and this decision."
What did the Council do? Actually, nothing - the parliament was never able to adopt the corresponding law. Because of this, tomorrow the article will lose its power, and the servants of Themis will be able to breathe more freely. Including unscrupulous court employees.
