Supreme Court: It is prohibited to disclose the name of a suspect before the guilty verdict enters into force

Publication of the name of a person suspected or accused of committing a criminal offense is prohibited until the guilty verdict enters into force. Such conclusions were reached by the Supreme Court.

The relevant position was expressed by the Civil Court of Cassation of the Supreme Court in its decision of September 10, 2025 in case №757/19417/23.

The statement said that the ban on publishing a name should apply regardless of the person's public status or public interest in the information. At the same time, the Supreme Court clarified that the protection of the violated right to name is carried out by removing personal data from the publication, and not by removing the material in its entirety.

This, according to the court, strikes a balance between the right of the individual and the freedom of the media to inform the public.

In a case reviewed by the Civil Court of Cassation, an ex-executive of an oil and gas company filed a lawsuit against an online media outlet. He explained that the media outlet had published an article on the website that stated that a preventive measure against him had been changed and that he was suspected of financial fraud.

According to the applicant, the media outlet violated his non-property right to use his name. He asked the court to order the defendant to remove the publication. The court of first instance granted the claim, and the appeal upheld it.

In the cassation appeal, the defendant drew attention to the plaintiff's status as a public figure and the public importance of the information.

The Supreme Court made a number of legal conclusions in the case. In particular, it mentioned Article Six of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. It does not prohibit the authorities from informing the public about criminal investigations, but requires them to do so with the utmost care and diligence necessary to respect the principle of presumption of innocence.

In addition, in view of Article 32 of the Constitution of Ukraine, it is necessary to distinguish between cases of protection of dignity, honor or business reputation by refuting false information and cases of protection of other personal non-property rights violated in connection with the dissemination of information, the inviolability of which is specially protected by law and the dissemination of which may cause moral harm even if it is true.

The court is convinced that the media violated the plaintiff's non-property right to use his name. After all, the resource published the data in the absence of a guilty verdict that had entered into force.

"The Supreme Court proceeded from the fact that regardless of the existence of a public interest and whether the plaintiff is a public figure, the indication of his name in a publication before the court's guilty verdict enters into force is a violation," the statement said.

• In August 2025, it was reported that the Supreme Court ruled that the responses of the Grok and ChatGPT language models could not be considered as evidence, as they were not "a source of truthful scientifically proven information".