Pre-trial investigation materials used in criminal proceedings of a commercial case without the written permission of an investigator or prosecutor for the disclosure of information from the pre-trial investigation are inadmissible evidence – SC CommCC

Materials of a pre-trial investigation that have been used without the written permission of an investigator or prosecutor constitute inadmissible evidence in a commercial case (Article 222 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine). In order to establish the fact of littering, the court must evaluate all the evidence adduced by the parties in its entirety, including reports of an inspection of the land plot by the controlling authority, an order to eliminate the violations, certificates of state inspectors, materials of satellite imagery, geodetic schemes and other documents confirming the existence of an unauthorised landfill.

This conclusion was reached by a panel of judges of the Commercial Cassation Court within the Supreme Court.

In the course of a pre-trial investigation in criminal proceedings the prosecutor’s office established that an unauthorised landfill had been placed on a land plot in communal ownership, thereby causing significant damage to the environment. The enterprise failed to comply with an order of the environmental inspectorate to eliminate the violations. The prosecutor, acting in the interests of the State, brought a claim against the communal enterprise seeking an order that it liquidate the unauthorised landfill on the land plot in communal ownership.

The commercial court, by a decision that was left unchanged by the appellate commercial court, allowed the claim. The courts of the previous instances, when establishing the circumstances of the enterprise’s violation of environmental-protection legislation and of legislation in the field of waste management, took into account, inter alia, the materials of the pre-trial investigation in the criminal proceedings.

The Commercial Cassation Court of the Supreme Court, leaving the judicial decisions of the previous instances unchanged, noted that information from a pre-trial investigation may be disclosed only with the permission of an investigator or prosecutor. Since no such permission was present in the case materials, the courts had erroneously taken the corresponding materials of the criminal proceedings into account as evidence.

At the same time the Commercial Cassation Court of the Supreme Court emphasised that the courts had established the fact of a violation of environmental legislation not solely on the basis of the materials of the criminal proceedings, but also on the basis of the totality of other evidence: inspection reports, orders, certificates of the environmental inspector, materials of satellite imagery, and so on. The relevance and admissibility of that evidence had not been refuted. In such circumstances the erroneous taking into account of the materials of the pre-trial investigation did not affect the correctness of the courts’ conclusions on the merits of the dispute.

Resolution of the Supreme Court of 11 February 2026 in case No. 910/7638/24 – https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/134085355.

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