A/HRC/45/CRP.9 case, a man accused of planning a terrorist act terminated the contract with four privatelyhired lawyers after the prosecution made it a condition for a plea bargain 202. 164. Lawyers also informed OHCHR that they had received threats of reprisals for discharging their professional duties. In one case, the lawyer of a Crimean Tatar man accused of spitting at a police officer during a house search was threatened by an investigator for “actively” defending his client. The investigator warned the lawyer he would “lose his license” and that it was a “matter of time” before he became a defendant himself.203 In another case, during a hearing before the Supreme Court of Crimea, a prosecutor threatened a lawyer with legal action and motioned the court to inform the bar association about the lawyer’s misconduct for quoting the Fourth Geneva Convention and referring to the Russian Federation as an occupying Power. Although in this case the judge refused to take action against the lawyer, this incident along with informal warnings received by the lawyer and his colleagues during private conversations with judges and FSB officers to stop invoking the legal status of Crimea as an occupied territory, has a chilling effect on their ability to properly exercise their professional functions. 165. On 25 January 2017, a Russian Federation lawyer, Nikolai Polozov, was forcefully brought to the FSB office in Simferopol for interrogation and asked to disclose details of a case concerning his client, Mejlis deputy chairman Ilmi Umerov. Despite being pressed to cooperate, he refused and invoked his duty to uphold attorney-client privilege and was released after two and a half hours. Then, on 14 February 2017, an appellate court upheld a first instance court’s decision to enable the FSB investigator to interrogate the lawyer as a witness in a criminal case against his own client. In this decision, the judge argued that the interrogation of Nikolai Polozov as a witness did not interfere with his rights as a defence lawyer because it allegedly concerned facts which had happened prior to the moment when he assumed the defence of his client. This decision not only undermines the confidentiality of communications between lawyers and their clients, but also the ability of lawyers to perform their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference. 166. On 7 December 2018, a district court in Simferopol sentenced a Crimean Tatar lawyer, Emil Kurbedinov, known for defending critics of Crimea’s occupation and alleged members of organisations banned in the Russian Federation, to five days of administrative detention for disseminating extremist symbols through a social network. During a court hearing, the judge ignored the fact that the impugned content had been posted five years ago – prior to the imposition of Russian Federation legislation in Crimea – and denied over 40 motions of his defence team, including the motion to ensure the presence of a prosecutor, to question an expert witness and to recuse a presiding judge. 167. OHCHR notes that Mr. Kurbedinov’s conviction followed a series of earlier incidents that indicate a pattern of deliberate intimidation, hindrance, harassment or interference by the Russian authorities in Crimea with his professional activities as a defence lawyer. In 2017, he was also prosecuted for social media posts. On 6 November 2018, police raided his office in Simferopol to serve him with a “formal warning” against engagement in extremism. Subsequently, on 18 December 2018, the Ministry of Justice of Crimea requested the bar association in Simferopol to renounce Kurbedinov’s membership, which put him at risk of being disbarred. VIII. Conclusions and Recommendations 168. OHCHR documented human rights violations occurring throughout the process of the administration of justice in conflict-related criminal cases before the Ukrainian judicial system. They run through all stages of criminal proceedings, starting at the time of arrest and ending with the approval of coerced plea bargains by courts, casting significant doubt on the fairness of the proceedings. Many human rights concerns described are not exclusive to conflict-related proceedings. 202 203 HRMMU interview, 2 March 2018. HRMMU interview, 30 November 2017. 35