A court order requiring ISPs to block access to 18 websites suggests that blocking of these websites is not similar to blocking of Russian websites which published anti-Ukrainian information, as Ali Safarov, IMI lawyer, said commenting on the report of the National commission for the state regulation of communications and informatization.
He also noted that this method of ensuring legal proceedings did not meet the requirements of criminal proceedings.
Ali Safarov noted that there is no text of the ruling of 23.07.2019, issued by the judge Vovk SV. in the case № 757/38387/19-к is inexistent in the register of court decisions. And thus, it remains unclear what violation was the ground for locking of 18 websites.
“Only that part of ruling could be analyzed, which was made public by the National commission for the state regulation of communications and informatization. This part said that the blocking of websites was imposed through the seizure of intellectual property rights the internet users have when they use the of web resources. Thus, it can be assumed that the blocking of websites is carried out within the framework of criminal proceedings under Articles 176 or 177 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which mean criminal liability for infringement of copyright, allied rights, rights to an invention, utility model, industrial design, topography of integrated microcircuits, plant variety, an innovation proposal, ” the lawyer said.
At the same time, Ali Safarov added, the ruling did not mention dispositions of the state security legislation, articles 109-110 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, that imply responsibility for an infringement upon the territorial integrity of Ukraine and other similar offenses, and this indicated that this websites blocking was not similar to blocking of Russian websites following the National security and defense council decision.
“From the point of view of criminal procedural law, the ruling to seize property rights does not meet the requirements of Articles 131, 170 of the Code of criminal procedure of Ukraine. Moreover, the seizure of property as it is stipulated by the Article 170 of the Code of criminal procedure should not lead to a complete blocking of all websites and to prohibition for third parties who are not parties to criminal proceedings to spread its content, ” IMI lawyer said.
IMI reported, the National commission for state regulation of communications and informatization has drawn the attention of telecommunication operators and providers to the decision of the Pechersk district court of Kyiv on July 23 on the obligation of Internet providers to close access to 18 sites.
On July 23,
the Pechersk district court in Kyiv ruled to restrict access to the Enigma.ua blogger platform and to nearly 20 other websites.
IMI reported, on May 15, 2017, President Petro Poroshenko
signed the decree implementing the decision of the National security and defense council “On application of personal special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions)”, which supposed to block access to Russian social networks “VKontakte” and “Odnoklassniki”, and also to Yandex and Mail.ru services.
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