Larysa Kryvoruchko, the defense attorney of Vyacheslav Zinchenko, who stands accused of murdering the public figure Iryna Farion, wrote a Facebook post on 6 May warning journalists and public activists of potential legal liability for filming and sharing her private conversations in the courtroom.
The lawyer said that she considered it unacceptable to “eavesdrop on a lawyer’s phone conversations, share the content of their confidential talks with the client, publicly discuss defense tactics or private conversations.”
She added that such actions were in violation of the ethical standards of journalism, encroached on attorney—client privilege and a person’s right to defense, and potentially constituted several criminal offenses.
She also warned that in the future the defense would take legal action in response to such actions: “The right to defense presumes that communication between a lawyer and a client is confidential: without this, fair trial is impossible. The defense warns only once; in the future everything will be met with a legal response.”
The post was triggered by a video recording of her phone conversation taken during a hearing break on 5 May, Hromadske journalist Mariana Pietsukh, who is covering the trial, said in a comment to the Institute of Mass Information.
The journalist said that it was the first hearing in this high-profile case that involved Kryvoruchko, which is why the media were paying extra attention to her.
The defendant, Vyacheslav Zinchenko, refused the three previous lawyers assigned to him. The new lawyer, Larysa Kryvoruchko, failed to attend hearings twice, on 1 and 4 May, leading to them being postponed. On 5 May, the court dismissed the lawyer’s motion to disqualify the secretary and the panel of judges, but gave her two weeks to review the case files. The next hearing is scheduled for 20 May.
“After all, she appeared in court on 5 May, so the increased media attention to her was understandable, since this was her first hearing in such a high-profile case. Moreover, while changing lawyers, Zinchenko said that he was ‘changing his legal position,’ and it is important to understand what exactly will change with the new lawyer,” Pietsukh said.
According to the journalist, not only journalists but also representatives of support groups from both sides present in the courtroom were filming the hearings. The accused also sometimes talks with reporters during breaks, so journalists and those present are always ready to film.
She clarified that the media usually film clips of lawyers talking to their clients in the courtroom to use as B-rolls in their reports.
Pietsukh added that Kryvoruchko had talked with her client and spoke on the phone in the courtroom during breaks in the 5 May hearing without lowering her voice, so others present could hear her.
“She was not whispering, and everyone could hear her talking. She was also speaking loudly, sitting by the desk (while the judges were in the deliberation room), on the phone about some other work matters. Both the support groups on both sides and journalists recorded this on their phones,” Pietsukh said.
The journalist added that the lawyer’s conversations with the client and on the phone were both in Russian, which attracted extra attention given the prosecution’s belief that the crime could have been ideologically motivated.
“After all, the prosecution (prosecutors and the victim) is talking about an ideological motive for the crime. According to their version, the Iryna Farion was assassinated for her principled stance on the language issue, which the defendant allegedly believed to be divisive, according to the case files,” the journalist said.
Mariana Pietsukh noted that “the lawyer couldn’t not have realised that a public conversation in the courtroom, during a trial in a high-profile case, in Russian, in the presence of journalists as well as the victim’s support group, would attract special attention.”
At the same time, the journalist suggested that such statements by the lawyer may point to an intention to motion for in camera hearings in the future.
“But at the same time, she was not whispering as she spoke to her client, and she did not step out into the hallway to talk on the phone. She spoke in Ukrainian during the hearing, which means that she does speak it, and if she wanted, she could have carried out the other conversations in Ukrainian, too. It is quite possible that such warnings to journalists and other listeners are an attempt to demand that the later hearings be held in camera,” the journalist believes.
The Institute of Mass Information lawyer Volodymyr Zelenchuk notes that if a lawyer’s conversation with a client is confidential, it should not be deliberately carried out in a manner and place where filming is permitted by law and the court.
“The confidentiality of communication between a lawyer and a client is certainly protected by law, but this must have its logical or ethical limits. If a conversation occurs without respect for the rights of other persons present in the situation, then it is worth investigating whether such actions were intentionally compromising and whether they violate the ethical norms applicable to lawyers,” said Zelenchuk.
As previously reported, on 1 May, the Shevchenkivskyi Court of Lviv 1 postponed the hearing in Vyacheslav Zinchenko’s case to 4 May due to the failure of the defendant’s new attorney, Larysa Kryvoruchko, to appear in court.
On 4 May, the court rescheduled the hearing again for the same reason.
Iryna Farion’s murder
Linguist and public figure Iryna Farion died in a hospital following an attempt on her life on 19 July 2024. Iryna Farion was buried on 22 July at the Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv.
On 25 July 2024, the police detained the suspect in her murder, Vyacheslav Zinchenko, and the court remanded him in custody.
On 25 December 2024, the police changed the case’s qualification and submitted the indictment to court.
The defendant is charged with willful murder of a person in relation to that person’s public functions motivated by nation-based intolerance (clauses 8 and 14, part 2, Article 115 of the Criminal Code) and illegal handling of weapons, ammunition, or explosives (part 1, Article 263).
He faces life imprisonment.
On 24 March, at the opening of a hearing in Lviv’s Shevchenkivskyi Court, Vyacheslav Zinchenko announced a hunger strike.