Court establishes fact of illegal changes in Decree on sanctions against Poroshenko – lawyer

On July 31, the decision of the Vinnytsia District Administrative Court on the lawsuit of Petro Poroshenko against the National Security and Defense Council apparatus and the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council came into force.

Petro Poroshenko’s lawyer Igor Golovan reported this during a meeting of the panel of judges of the Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Court.

“In particular, it was established that the materials of the Decree with the appendix, which was sent for the signature of the president and dated 12.02.2025, contained errors, in particular, 11 digits were indicated in the identification code of Petro Poroshenko instead of 10. Accordingly, the court established the circumstance that the president put it into effect.” The court also established that the National Security and Defense Council requested the appendix with the error in the letter back and sent a different text on the 13th – the day after the signing of the Decree. Thus, the text of the Decree was illegally changed.

The court also noted that the current legislation of Ukraine does not provide for the possibility of correcting errors or making changes to regulatory legal acts, including decisions of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine and presidential decrees outside the established procedure for adopting the relevant act.

“These conclusions made by the court were not challenged by the National Security and Defense Council apparatus, were not challenged by the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, and the court’s decision entered into force,” Golovan said.

According to him, the Vinnytsia District Administrative Court, having established these circumstances, believes that the proper protection of the plaintiff’s rights is to appeal and cancel the Presidential Decree on the application of sanctions.

“But the relevant circumstances were established by the court and described in the decision. And this decision has entered into legal force,” Golovan said.

As is known, Petro Poroshenko is challenging the Decree of President Zelensky regarding illegal sanctions in the Supreme Court. During the next meeting of the panel of judges, the fifth President stated that the government has not been able to hand over all the documents at the court’s request for 7 months.

“I am suspected of falsification of materials that were transferred to the Cabinet of Ministers and the Council of National Security and Defense. Pass this month to the process the originals of the materials on display were either clearly manipulated, or you deceived those who prepared and signed decisions on sanctions,” Poroshenko said angrily to government officials.

On July 23, the panel of judges of the Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Court, considering Petro Poroshenko’s claim against President Zelensky to cancel the Decree on sanctions, accepted the request to request all documents related to the decision-making process on sanctions from the National Security and Defense Council, the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Economy. The deadline for submitting documents expired on August 11.

“The first hearing was on April 17, and every month there was only one hearing. All this time, it was a preparatory stage, we were finding out what other documents the government had not provided, and why it had not provided them, and whether it could provide them. In the end, we nevertheless began to discuss the case in essence. It could be anything,” lawyer Ilya Novikov told reporters.

Let us recall that the Supreme Court is considering Petro Poroshenko’s claim against President Volodymyr Zelensky on the illegality of the Decree on Sanctions. In the courtroom are people’s deputies of Ukraine, media representatives, as well as representatives of diplomatic missions.