This digest is the first material, in which OPORA collected quantitative information from the Unified State Register of Court Decisions and answers to information requests concerning the investigations into electoral crimes, provided by the Prosecutor's General Office of Ukraine and State Court Administration. OPORA is also planning to collect and publish main information about the investigation results, and stir up an open dialog between law-enforcement, courts, observers and interested citizens.
Thus, 478 pre-trial investigations were initiated during 2015 regular local elections, 43% of which (204 of 478) concerned voter bribery; 125 – impeding the free exercise of voting rights, activities of election commissions and official observers; 78 – sending false information to the State Voter Register maintenance bodies, falsification of electoral documents, voting results or the data in State Voter Register; 55 – illegal use of a ballot paper, multiple voting. However, 211 cases were closed without any consideration in courts. Around a fourth part of the cases are still being investigated. Only 68 bills of indictment were transferred to courts, and court decisions have been already passed on 65 of them as of July 2016.
Most of the judgments concerned unlawful use of a ballot paper, or multiple voting by the same person in election or referendum. The judgments were passed by courts in 17 oblasts (mostly in Odesa oblast) and the city of Kyiv. Thus, 68 citizens were brought to responsibility, most of which are the voters (48). 19 members of election commissions and only one candidate for member of local council (Ostroh City Council) were also brought to responsibility.
We would like to emphasize that the fact that candidates, who are directly interested in electoral crimes, are rarely brought to responsibility means that the certainty of punishment principle doesn't work against organizers of illegal election schemes. Another issue which raises concern is that prosecution bodies and the National Police often provide incomplete or controversial statistical data in the answers to information requests from Civil Network OPORA.
This digest has been produced with the financial assistance of the Council of Europe. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the Council of Europe.