Advocate request: template and generator

Your advocate request

Formatted to ДСТУ 4163:2020 The details follow ДСТУ 4163:2020, the Ukrainian standard for documents: the date, the addressee, the heading, the annex note, the signature «First name SURNAME». Print: A4 sheet, margins 30, 10, 20 and 20 mm, Times New Roman 14 pt, indent 10 mm.

This is a draft. Check each field and the law in force on the day you file. The document is in Ukrainian: a Ukrainian addressee or court receives it.

The reply term of an advocate request

The addressee must reply within five working days from the day it received the request. When the request covers much information, the term may be extended to twenty working days, with a written notice to the advocate within the same five days (Art. 24(2) of the Law on the Bar).

Day the addressee received the request Count the term

What the law says about the advocate request

1. What it is. A written request of an advocate to an authority, a local self-government body, a company, an institution, an organisation or a public association for information and copies of documents that the advocate needs to help a client (Art. 24(1) of the Law on the Bar). To a natural person only with their consent (Art. 20(1)(1) of the Law on the Bar).
2. Two required annexes. Copies of the certificate of the right to practise law and of the ордер (or the assignment of a free legal aid centre), certified by the advocate. Other documents may not be required (Art. 24(1) of the Law on the Bar).
3. What it may not ask for. Advice or explanations of the law. Information from criminal proceedings is given under the Criminal Procedure Code (Art. 24(1) of the Law on the Bar).
4. Term. Five working days from receipt. An extension to twenty working days needs reasons and a written notice within the first five days (Art. 24(2) of the Law on the Bar).
5. Copies over 10 pages the advocate pays at the actual cost of copying and printing, within the limits that the Cabinet of Ministers set under the Law on Access to Public Information (Art. 24(2) of the Law on the Bar).
6. Restricted information is not given on a request, and such a refusal carries no liability (Art. 24(2), (3) of the Law on the Bar).
7. Liability. An unlawful refusal, or a late, incomplete or false reply to an advocate request: a fine on the officials of 25 to 50 tax-free minimum incomes (Art. 212-3(5) of the Code of Administrative Offences).

Positions of the Supreme Court

• Request and public informationWhen an advocate request asks for public information, the advocate must also cite the Law on Access to Public Information and tell the addressee that it holds public information.Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, 18.08.2022, case No. 520/13981/21
• How it differs from an information requestAn advocate request can go to more persons, but it covers only the information the advocate needs to help a client. By itself it is not a request for public information.Cassation Administrative Court of the Supreme Court, 21.03.2024, case No. 640/7688/21

Sample reply to an advocate request

The reply names the request, lists the documents with the number of sheets and, for copies over 10 pages, the cost of copying.

Sample notice of an extension of the term

It goes out within five working days from the receipt of the request and says why the information is large.