Civil society organizations call on Zelenskyi to veto bill safeguarding lawyers' work
Multiple civil society organizations are calling on the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi to veto the recently adopted bill No. 12320 on ensuring the protection of lawyers' work, as it threatens freedom of speech due to imperfect legal technique, as per the address initiated by the Center for Democracy and the Rule of Law. It was signed by a number of NGOs including the Institute of Mass Information.
The President is also asked to hold consultations with the Ministry of Justice and instruct them to sign of the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of the Profession of Lawyer (CETS No. 226), with the ratification bill to be subsequently submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
The authors of the address call on the lawyer community:
- to actively use the media self-regulation mechanism;
- to proactively respond to journalistic investigations into deliberate trial stalling by lawyers, aimed to violate the right to a fair trial.
IMI shares the full address:
On July 16, 2025, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted in the second reading and as a whole the Draft Bill No. 12320 “On Amendments to the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses, the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes of Ukraine to Ensure Compliance with the Guarantees of Lawyers' Work”. According to the explanatory report, the draft bill was developed and adopted to address “violations of theguarantees of lawyers' work, such as the prohibition of identifying a lawyer with their client, which is a result, among other things, of a spike in the number of proceedings on criminal offenses related to the Russian Federation's armed aggression.”
The problem of ensuring the independence of lawyers' work is not unique to Ukraine. This prompted the Council of Europe to adopt the Convention for the Protection of the Profession of Lawyer in March 2025, which has been open for signature since May 13. The Convention has been signed by 18 countries which Ukraine is yet to join. Among other things, the Convention protects lawyers and their clients, namely the client's right to access a lawyer of their choice in the event of deprivation of liberty and the attorney–client privilege during searches; ensures protection against any unlawful obstruction or interference, etc. One of the guarantees stipulated in Paragraph 5 of Article 6 of the Convention is the state's obligation to ensure that lawyers are not adversely affected by their identification with their clients or with their clients’ cases, taking into account the laws protecting freedom of expression.
The right to a fair trial and the right to freedom of expression are competing rights. The balance of rights under Articles 6 (right to a fair trial), 8 (right to privacy), and 10 (right to freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights has repeatedly become the subject of review in the European Court of Human Rights. In each specific case, the court considered the balance between an individual's rights and, for instance, the public interest.
Ukraine's current legislation stipulates that everyone has the right to defend their business reputation in court. Thus, lawyers who believe that they have been unfairly identified with their client are generally entitled to such defense. Introducing additional protections at the legislative level should only serve the purpose of protecting the right to a fair trial. At the same time, this duty should rest not only with the media, but also with the judiciary and the lawyer community, which should respond accordingly to facts of corruption, especially those reported on in the media and not addressed appropriately by anti-corruption bodies, law enforcement agencies, or the judiciary itself.
The approved version of the amendments contains a note stating that any identification (association, connection) of a lawyer with their client, the client's work or actions which creates a biased attitude towards the lawyer, indicates the lawyer's personal involvement in the client’s case, affects the lawyer's independent status, and/or exerts negative pressure on their performance of their professional duties, and/or violates the guarantees of lawyers' work, and/or impedes the exercise of the lawyer's rights stipulated by the Law of Ukraine “On the Bar and Lawyers' Work” counts as identifying a lawyer with their client. It is this act, committed without the purpose of preventing the lawyer from exercising their legal authority to defend, represent, and provide other types of legal assistance to the client, that the bill stipulates UAH 3,700–5,100 fines for.
We note that the wording of the new Article 185-16 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses and the notes thereto contains several errors in terms of legal technique. In particular, the excessive use of “and/or” prevents one from understanding whether only one of the elements listed in the note needs to be established to constitute an offense, or whether a cumulative sum of the elements needs to be proven. Reading the bill a certain way allowes to punish a plain mention that a lawyer is representing a client in a certain case as an administrative offense, as it will be “identifying the lawyer with their client… indicating the lawyer's personal involvement in the client’s case.” Any mention of a lawyer that exerts negative pressure on their practice of law, even if it was reported without the aim of preventing the provision of legal assistance to the client, i.e. committed without any intent, may also be punishable.
Adopting this wording makes it significantly more difficult for journalists to mention lawyers in their reporting and criticize the method they have chosen to defend their clients, especially in high-profile cases which have a history of stalling. These include corruption cases, cases on illegal construction or other harm to society, cultural heritage, the environment, etc. The case of obstruction of reporting in the office of the then Ukreximbank board chair Yevhen Metzher is illustrative. The trial in this case lasted for over two years, which is an excessive period, and ended with the defendants being acquitted due to the statute of limitations expiring. The process was stalled by the defense submitting numerous motions to postpone hearings due to the defendants' health, which were granted by the court despite the signs of possible abuse of procedural rights.
Accordingly, any criticism of the actions of lawyers who stall trials using not arguments or evidence but procedural casuistry will be viewed as pressure on the lawyer and pose a threat to the media, which are already in a precarious state due to the war and its impact on the economy.
The introduced norms will also be burdensome for local media, which are in a vulnerable financial situation due to the full-scale war and donor programs being canceled.
Furthermore, even despite the draft bill including a list of persons authorized to draw up protocols on these administrative offenses (chairs of the Bar Councils of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, oblasts, Kyiv and Sevastopol cities, or a Bar Council member authorized by the Council), there is a risk of courts issuing rulings that will have a chilling effect on the media's freedom to cover events of public interest.
In view of the above, we call on:
The President of Ukraine:
- to veto the adopted bill as one that threatens freedom of speech due to imperfect legal technique;
- to hold consultations with the Ministry of Justice and instruct them to sign of the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of the Profession of Lawyer (CETS No. 226), with the ratification bill to be subsequently submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
The lawyer community:
- to actively use the media self-regulation mechanism and to proactively respond to journalistic investigations into deliberate trial stalling by lawyers, aimed to violate the right to a fair trial.
- Institute for Regional Press Development (IRPD)
- NGO Ukrainian Media and Communications Institute
- Souspilnist Foundation
- NGO Internews Ukraine
- National Union of Journalists of Ukraine
- Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law
- Commission on Journalism Ethics
- NGO Digital Security Lab
- NGO Detector Media
- NGO Institute of Mass Inforamation
On July 21, the civil society and the media called on MPs to cancel the Verkhovna Rada's July 16 decision to adopt in the second reading and in its entirety the draft bill No. 12320, which introduces fines for "identifying a lawyer with their client." The address was initiated by Transparency International Ukraine and signed by the Institute of Mass Information.
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