The court took into account the age of the minor and mitigated the sentence

Publication date: September 25, 2023

A successful story from the practice of lawyers of the Vinnytsia-based NGO “Podillia Center for Human Rights” is about something other than how to help avoid punishment for a crime. The main point is that every citizen has the right to fair justice, including an individual approach to the case, especially when the offender is a minor student.

Pavlo* is a tenth-grader at a school in the Vinnytsia oblast. This summer, he got into an unpleasant story: not having the right to drive a vehicle because he had not yet reached the age of majority, he got behind the wheel of his father’s car and decided to go around his native village. On one of the streets, the police stopped him and drew up a report on an administrative offense under Part 2 of Article 126 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses**.

The court of first instance found Pavlo guilty of committing this offense and imposed a fine of 200 non-taxable minimum incomes, i.e. UAH 3400.

Pavlo himself told This story to the lawyers of the Vinnytsia-based NGO “Podillia Center for Human Rights”. The guy asked the organization to provide him with legal assistance. In particular, he wanted to know whether the fine was pretty imposed on him.

After analyzing the court decision, lawyer Oleksandr Dovbysh concluded that, in this case, the court did not consider the mitigating circumstances and the offender’s age.

• Thus, Pavlo pleaded guilty to the offense in the court of first instance and sincerely repented. In addition, he is a 10th-grade student, does not work, has no independent income, did not cause material damage to anyone by committing the offense, is characterized exclusively positively at his place of residence and study, and is brought up in a large family, which is confirmed by relevant evidence. This evidence was provided in the case, but the court of first instance did not consider these circumstances,” the lawyer comments.

Oleksandr Dovbysh advised him to file an appeal, which he helped to draft and which the court of appeal subsequently granted***: it overturned the court’s decision of the first instance.

As a result, Pavlo was not fined but was given a warning without a court fee.

* Name has been changed for ethical reasons.

** Article 126. Driving a vehicle by a person who does not have the appropriate documents for the right to drive such a vehicle or has not presented them for inspection, or in respect of whom a temporary restriction on the right to drive cars has been imposed

*** Link to a court decision: https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/113074944

The material was created with the support of the international charity platform GlobalGiving and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. The publication’s content is solely the responsibility of the Legal Development Network.

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