Legislation in question: Parts 6 and 7 of Article 115 of the Criminal Procedure Code

Legal issue: Whether the legal provisions, stipulating for the possibility of seizure and sequestration of cash which was “frozen” in the course of criminal investigation with its owner and not admitting the same with regard to money in cashless form which were stolen from the current account of the victim of a crime and which are on accounts in other banks?

Ratio decidendi: This distinction in regulation of consequences of freezing the objects of property rights (including cash) and money in cashless form is conditioned upon different nature of those objects (bank money is obligations, not things) and may not therefore be considered as violating the Constitution. However, in those cases when the preliminary investigation within a criminal case is suspended indefinitely because of the failure to determine the offender, a risk may arise that monies will be frozen for the entire period of suspension, until the statute of limitation expires. This effectively constitutes an uncertain temporal restriction upon the property rights, which does not correspond to the Constitution. The legislator is prescribed to make necessary amendments to the legislation in force.