On November 13, the Cassation Civil Court within the Supreme Court obliged NABU to delete from its site the article on the criminal case of ex-MP Mykola Martynenko, accused of embezzling about UAH 700 million from the state-owned company.

Although his case is already in the stage of a public trial, Martynenko demanded that the information on NABU website in the article “Martynenko Case” violated his non-proprietary rights to use of his name and harmed his business reputation. The Supreme Court stated that the person can only be named with regard to a certain criminal case only after the final court verdict. In its absurd decision, the Supreme Court actually recognized that the private interest of the accused public person in a particularly grave crime of (in this case, Martynenko) was above the public interest to know the name of the alleged perpetrator. 

Such a decision undermines the right of citizens to information about alleged criminals and public officials suspected of stealing hundreds of millions. It is a dangerous precedent for the freedom of speech in Ukraine as a position of Supreme Court is obligatory for all other courts. It means that all other suspects of NABU cases have strong ground to sue the media and private citizens forbidding to mention their names with regard to any criminal investigation, even the ones that are already publicly trialled. For instance, Martynenko also sued AntAC on the same grounds. The case awaits the final decision of the Supreme Court.