Actions such as these committed by officials are violations of the right to defence. As the monitoring 127 revealed that this was a systematic problem, in September 2019, the Commissioner sent a request to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and the Prosecutor of the Kharkiv oblast to take action to eliminate violations of the right to legal defence during detention. The Main Department of National Police in Kharkiv oblast conducted an official investigation into the incidents described in the submissions. Two persons were disciplined in connection with these incidents for having failed to carry out their official duties in line with the requirements specified in the legislation. Special attention should be paid to complaints about the failure of prosecutors in local prosecutor’s offices to carry out their duties, in particular in regard to implementation of procedural guidance for pre-trial investigations. In response to these complaints (and having verified the facts of the case in each complaint), the Commissioner filed a motion with the Prosecutor of the city of Kyiv to requesting that the Prosecutor take action to eliminate violations of human rights and freedoms by prosecutors from local prosecutor’s offices in the City of Kyiv. The applicant’s right to have information about a criminal offence entered into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations and to obtain an appropriate excerpt from the URPTI Like any state governed by the rule of law, Ukraine guarantees to every person the right to report illegal acts to law enforcement agencies. In addition, the law obliges the investigator or prosecutor to enter the relevant information into the URPTI no later than 24 hours after the submission of the statement and/or report on the committed criminal offence. In 2019, citizens actively exercised their right to report illegal actions to law enforcement agencies. However, law enforcement officers did not always properly perform their duties; there were cases when information from citizen’s reports on crimes was not entered into the URPTI, and when excerpts from the URPTI on crimes or on the closing of criminal proceedings were not provided on request, or where requests were refused. These violations can be explained by the fact that investigators and prosecutors may try to “improve” statistical data on the investigation of crimes and referral of crimes to the courts by being selective about what information they enter into the URPTI on statements and/or reports of criminal offences. Investigators and prosecutors may also seek grounds to avoid entering information into the UPRTI as they carry out certain procedural actions. This practice indicates ineffective prosecutorial oversight of compliance with the law when considering allegations of criminal offences. To restore their rights in such cases, some applicants have appealed the investigators’ decisions in court, and the investigating judges have upheld the complaints and ordered the relevant authorities to enter information into the URPTI. The actions of these law enforcement officers discredit law enforcement agencies, and citizens are forced to apply to the Commissioner for protection of their rights. In 2019, 152 complaints were received on the issues outlined above. CHAPTER 6 Chapter 6. Compliance with the rule of law in the exercise of justice