Litigation on obstruction faced by Korabeliv.Info journalists drags on for over 8 years

The litigation in the case of obstruction faced by Korabeliv.Info journalist Natalya Belova during an election in Mykolaiv in May 2014 has been ongoing for over eight years. During the incident, election commission member Yevhen Bazulko covered the journalist's camera lens, behaved rudely and physically interfered with her work, as per the article by the Institute of Mass Information representative in Mykolaiv oblast, Kateryna Sereda.

Proceedings under Article 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine have been opened three times, with the case being submitted to court as late as 2017. The first and appellate instance courts found Bazulko guilty. Later, he filed a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court, claiming that his procedural rights had been violated. In 2024, the Supreme Court partially granted the cassation appeal and referred the case back to the Mykolaiv Court of Appeal for retrial.

However, none of the five scheduled hearings took place in the year from June 2024 to June 2025 due to the defendant's (Yevhen Bazulko's) failure to attend.

Yevhen Bazulko. Photo by korabelov.info

In a comment to IMI, Natalya Belova quoted Bazulka's lawyer as saying in court that the defendant "does not want" to attend, and the court cannot hear the case without the direct participation of the accused, so as not to violate his procedural rights.

“The case has been drifting between the courts for over eight years. And if we add the preliminary pre-trial investigation by the police, then it has been 12 years in total that we have waited for tangible results. Although both the first instance court and the Mykolaiv Court of Appeal found Bazulko guilty, he filed a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court, claiming that some of his rights had been violated during the preliminary investigation. So the Supreme Court referred the case back to the court of appeal. But he has never appeared in court since June 2024. The lawyer simply said, 'He doesn't want to.' I will not estimate the chances of the trial being completed, but I hope that law and justice will at last prevail and put an end to this shameful story,” said Natalya Belova.

Natalya Belova. Photo shared by Natalya Belova

As previously reported, Mykolaiv oblast police closed 32 cases related to violations of journalists' rights (namely, obstruction and threats) over the past three years.