On October 27, the HACC restarted the trial in the case of the alleged misappropriation of UAH 92.6 million from Odesa’s budget through the purchase of the former Kraian plant’s buildings at an inflated price. The events took place in 2016, and the defendants include former Odesa Mayor Hennadii Trukhanov, his deputy, and city hall officials.

The trial had to start over because one of the judges on the panel was replaced back in June this year.

When the parties discussed how to proceed under Article 319 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the prosecutor asked the court to resume from where the previous panel had left off, but the defense firmly objected and insisted on starting over.

For several months, the court could not settle the matter because defendants and defense lawyers failed to appear. Today, the parties went back to square one: the court re-established the defendants’ details and moved on to opening statements.

The case has been before the HACC for more than five years — since March 2021, when the HACC Appeals Chamber overturned the acquittal handed down by the Malynivskyi District Court of Odesa. The proceedings are still at the stage of examining the prosecution’s documentary evidence.

Although the statute of limitations does not run out until 2031 and the court formally still has time, the trial continues to move slowly. Hearings are regularly postponed or disrupted by air raid alerts, participants’ failure to appear, or overlapping hearing schedules.

Starting over may push back a final decision in the case indefinitely.

Delays caused by replacing judges are a systemic problem in criminal justice. When a trial is fully audio- and video-recorded, the participants’ consent to continuing it should not be decisive. We wrote about this in more detail here.