We advise you as follows, that on February 25, 2014 the Head of the Commission submitted his resignation to the Congress of Advocates of Ukraine.

Valentyn Zagariya noted: “I am absolutely confident that the allegations against me clearly  not true. I held the position of the Commission’s Head for more than a year. During this period I properly performed my responsibilities to ensure Commission’s activity as a collegiate body elected to consider appeals against decisions, actions or inactions of local qualification and disciplinary Bar commissions of Ukraine. Meanwhile, during this period Commission’s activity also focused on several key vectors to protect professional advocates’ rights. Notably this refers to sending the official appeals to law enforcement bodies with the requests to take under control facts of the attacks on advocates, as well as incidents related to the realization of illegal searches on advocate’s premises. Also a huge scope of actions was made to creating a truly efficient scheme of implementing the attorney’s right to information. As a result, courts started issuing decrees regarding holding officials of enterprises, institutions and organizations accountable for administrative responsibility in case of deny in providing information on attorney’s request.

I respect beliefs of my colleagues advocates who expressed me their mistrust and have no stomach for involving headed by me advocates’ self-government body in political struggle, which we witness nowadays. That is why I decided to resign from the position of the Commission’s Head. To ensure further activities of the Commission and based on the signed decree, obligations of the Commission’s Head will lie with Oleg Beliaev, Deputy Chairman of the Commission”.