Serving a suspicion notice to a lawyer by an investigator does not violate guarantees of advocacy activity — Supreme Court

Serving a suspicion notice to a lawyer by an investigator who was part of the group of investigators designated to conduct the pre-trial investigation of the criminal proceedings against the lawyer, given that the suspicion notice itself was drafted and signed by an authorized entity – the prosecutor, does not violate the guarantees of the lawyer's professional activity and the procedure for notifying about suspicion defined by Article 481 of the Criminal Procedure Code. This conclusion was made by the panel of judges of the Second Judicial Chamber of the Criminal Cassation Court of the Supreme Court on 07.05.2026 in case No. 344/16572/13-к.

Positions of courts of first and appellate instances

The courts of previous instances found the person not guilty and acquitted them under Part 2 of Article 369-2 of the Criminal Code due to the lack of proof of the accused's commission of the specified criminal offense.

In the cassation appeal, the prosecutor argues that in this case the suspicion notice was served to the suspect, as a lawyer, without violations of the requirements of Article 481 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Position of the Criminal Cassation Court of the Supreme Court

The appellate court ruling was canceled and a new hearing was appointed in the appellate court.

The panel of judges of the Criminal Cassation Court noted that the case materials show that the written suspicion notice was drafted and signed by the prosecutor, and the text was directly served to the suspect by the senior investigator who, according to the resolution on the creation of the group of investigators, conducted the pre-trial investigation in this criminal proceeding.

Thus, serving the text of the suspicion notice by an investigator who was part of the group of investigators designated to conduct the pre-trial investigation of the criminal proceedings against the person, given that the suspicion notice itself was drafted and signed by an authorized entity – the prosecutor, did not violate the guarantees of the lawyer's professional activity and the procedure for notifying about suspicion defined by Article 481 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Therefore, the appellate court's conclusion that the suspicion notice was served by a senior police investigator and not by the prosecutor authorized to notify the lawyer, and that there is no written order obliging the senior investigator to serve this suspicion notice, is inconsistent with the direct content of the mentioned procedural norm and indicates an improper examination of the prosecution's arguments presented in the appeal and its supplements in this part.

Under these circumstances, the panel of judges of the Criminal Cassation Court considers that the appellate review of the criminal proceedings against the person was conducted formally, without proper examination of the prosecutor's arguments presented in the appeal and without providing reasoned responses to them.

The resolution of the panel of judges of the Second Judicial Chamber of the Criminal Cassation Court of the Supreme Court dated 07.05.2026 in case No. 344/16572/13-к (proceeding No. 51-3586км25) can be viewed at the link.

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