When the police investigate and the prosecutors don't look: a case full of serious doubts

The rule of law does not depend on the number of convicts. It depends on whether the state follows its own rules even when prosecuting a person it considers a criminal. This is precisely why the case of Ukrainian citizen O.B., registered under ID KRPA-170876/TČ-2019-000097, is so disturbing. This is not a single procedural error. Not a single piece of questionable evidence. It is a chain of serious misconduct by the police, the public prosecutor's office, the courts and, subsequently, the control authorities, which together create an image of proceedings that is very far from the ideal of a fair trial.

The biggest symbol of the whole case is a fact that should not be possible at all in a democratic legal state. O.B. was a citizen of Ukraine and stated from the beginning of the proceedings that he understood the Czech language only to a limited extent. Nevertheless, the resolution to initiate criminal prosecution was not delivered to him in the Ukrainian language. He did not receive the translation until 7 December 2022, more than three years after the prosecution began. During that time, he was taken into custody, subjected to interrogations, house searches, and subsequently faced trial.

Let's ask ourselves a simple question. How can a person effectively defend himself against charges if the state has not given him a basic document explaining what he is actually accused of, in a language he understands, for more than three years? How can he file a qualified complaint? How can he prepare a defense? How can the police check the legality of their actions?

This question is not only a criticism of the police authority. It is a criticism of the public prosecutor's office, which was supposed to supervise the legality of the preliminary proceedings. It is a criticism of the courts, which should have reflected this fundamental flaw. Above all, however, he is a critic of the system, which was able to send a person to prison faster than it ensured him the basic procedural right guaranteed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms.

Equally serious questions are raised by the interrogation of the accused on July 17, 2019. According to the documents, O.B. was hospitalized in the ICU at that time. On the original documents, his signature should have been missing during the interrogation and during the instruction about the rights of the accused. Subsequently, however, a protocol containing a signature appeared in the file, which the accused disputed and refused to recognize as authentic.

The biggest problem isn't the mere existence of the signature dispute. The biggest problem is the fact that the courts have refused to implement the simplest possible solution. The defense proposed an expert opinion in the field of handwriting. Expert examination could definitively answer the question of whether the signature really belongs to the accused within a short period of time. Yet it was not done. The court of first instance rejected it. The Court of Appeal rejected it. Justice thus left unanswered a question that could have been resolved objectively and professionally.

The next chapter is a house search on July 16, 2019. According to the documents, O.B. was so indisposed during the intervention that an emergency medical service had to be called. He was subsequently transferred to the intensive care unit of Na Homolce Hospital. However, the house search continued. Not minutes, but long hours. The decisive part of the act took place without the presence of the person against whom the intervention was conducted.

Defense counsel was not present during a substantial portion of the search and did not appear until many hours after it began. An interpreter was not brought in despite the police being aware of the language barrier. At the same time, other searches of the premises were carried out without the presence of the accused. In addition, the family's 13-year-old daughter stayed in the apartment without OSPOD being provided. All this in a procedure that was supposed to lead to an objective and indisputable securing of evidence.

Equally alarming is the manner in which the alleged damage was determined. Although the amount of damage was one of the basic pillars of the indictment, no expert opinion from the field of economics was prepared. The police relied on revenue invoices without an expert assessment of the cost side. Even the tax office did not determine the qualified amount of damage. Yet this harm was used as the basis for prosecution, indictment and subsequent conviction.
This means that in proceedings where the amount of damage determines the legal qualification of the act, the jurisdiction of the court and the amount of the penalty, this damage was not professionally determined by an expert. Still, the courts were satisfied with the police calculation. If it is true that the Court of Appeal refused expert evidence on the grounds that it would be time-consuming, and at the same time increased the sentence, this is an extremely disturbing picture of the approach to evidence.

Equally serious are the objections to the evidence in favor of the accused. According to the documents, the statements of witnesses from Ukraine were not properly evaluated. Evidence of residence outside the territory of the Czech Republic was not sufficiently reflected. The role of other persons involved in accounting was not addressed. Nevertheless, an image of guilt was created, which was subsequently taken over by the prosecution and the courts.

However, the biggest failure may not be the police or the courts. Cops can make mistakes. Prosecutors can overlook misconduct. Judges can misjudge evidence. But then what are the control institutions for?

It is precisely for this reason that it is striking that the complaints pointing to possible wrongdoing by the police and other agencies were not effectively reviewed, according to the documents presented. GIBS refused to deal with the matter substantively, leaving the whole case without a real independent review.

This case is not just the story of one person. It is the story of a system that, according to the available documents, tolerated more than three years of violations of the language rights of the accused, refused to verify the questionable signature with an expert opinion, was satisfied with an unprofessionally determined damage, accepted a house search carried out after the accused was taken to the intensive care unit, and subsequently failed to ensure effective control of its own procedure.

The rule of law does not begin with a judgment of conviction. The rule of law begins with the observance of the law by the state itself. And that, according to the submitted documents, is where this case raises the most serious doubts. If such questions remain unanswered, it does not harm only one accused. It damages the public's trust in the police, the prosecutor's office, the courts and justice itself.

Source:

1. PARLIAMENT OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC, 1993.Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. Constitutional Act No. 2/1993 Coll. Prague: Parliament of the Czech Republic. Available from:https://www.psp.cz/docs/laws/listina.html

2. CZECH REPUBLIC, 1961.Act No. 141/1961 Coll., on criminal court proceedings (penal code). Prague: Parliament of the Czech Republic. Available from:https://www.zakonyprolidi.cz/cs/1961-141

3. COUNCIL OF EUROPE, 1950.Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights). Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Available from:https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/convention_ces

4. The finding of the Constitutional Court no. stamp I. ÚS 3277/21, 2022. Found on 15 March 2022. Available from:https://www.zakonyprolidi.cz/judikat/uscr/i-us-3277-21-1