Returning a vehicle after proceedings are closed

Positions of the trial and appellate courts: the trial court closed proceedings concerning an offence under Article 290 of the Criminal Code under Article 284(1)(3-1) and (2)(1-1) of the Criminal Procedure Code because the perpetrator had not been identified and the limitation period for criminal liability had expired. It confiscated to the State the physical evidence: a DAF vehicle belonging to its owner according to foreign registration certificates, and the keys. The appellate court set aside the confiscation and returned the vehicle and keys to the owner.

In the cassation appeal, the prosecutor argued that the appellate court had wrongly set aside the confiscation by misapplying Article 100 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The prosecutor maintained that the seized vehicle was the subject matter of an offence under Article 290 because its original chassis number had been destroyed and its identifying markings altered, meaning it could not lawfully be traded, registered or operated.

Position of the Criminal Cassation Court: the appellate ruling was upheld.

Reasoning of the Criminal Cassation Court: the panel stated that closure of proceedings under Article 284(1)(3-1) prevents the court from finding that a particular person committed an offence. This excludes consequences that are inherently punitive or restrictive of property rights. Without a conviction, confiscation of property belonging to a person who is neither a suspect nor an accused in those proceedings constitutes an impermissible restriction of ownership.

Article 100, governing the disposal of physical evidence, cannot be interpreted expansively to justify de facto confiscation without a criminal-law decision establishing both an offence by a particular person and the property’s connection with that offence.

Moreover, under Article 100(9)(5), money, valuables and other property that were the subject matter of a criminal offence or another socially dangerous act are confiscated, except for property returned to its owner or lawful possessor. If the owner is unidentified, the property passes to the State under the procedure established by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

During the appeal, the lawyer provided copies of documents confirming the owner’s purchase of the vehicle in the Republic of Poland. The appellate court therefore reasonably found that ownership was established by appropriate purchase documents, which the prosecutor did not dispute in the cassation appeal.

Since the law provides for return of property to its lawful possessor and ownership of the vehicle had been established by relevant and admissible evidence, the panel agreed with the appellate court that the vehicle could not be confiscated or taken for the benefit of the State.

The prosecutor’s claim that a vehicle with an obliterated chassis number could not be returned because it could not lawfully be traded, registered or operated was untenable. Restrictions on its use on public roads or a temporary inability to register it with the Ministry of Internal Affairs do not deprive the owner of the rights to possess and dispose of the property. As the appellate court reasonably observed, inability to use the vehicle for its intended purpose does not prevent the owner from deciding its future in accordance with national law, including dismantling it for spare parts, selling unaffected components or disposing of it as scrap metal.