Extradition Lawyer in Lviv: Lviv Court of Appeal and the Local Procedure

Which Lviv court has the file, and which authority decides surrender?

This is illustrated by case 461/2460/26: the Halytskyi District Court of Lviv ruled on prosecutors' custody applications on 11 September and 6 October 2026. The Lviv Oblast Prosecutor's Office brought them. Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General generally performs central functions in pre-trial matters; the Ministry of Justice handles requests concerning trial or execution of a sentence. In this actual case a Ministry of Justice surrender order existed separately from the local custody applications. None of these institutions is interchangeable.

An arrest at the Polish border is not automatically a Lviv-city case

Lviv Oblast's Polish-facing crossings include Krakivets–Korczowa, Shehyni–Medyka and Rava-Ruska–Hrebenne. All three are outside central Lviv. Article 583 sends the prosecutor's temporary-arrest application to the investigating judge with territorial jurisdiction over the place of apprehension. A traveller stopped at Shehyni must not be assumed to have a Halytskyi District Court case, nor can the family assume the detainee was transported to Lviv. Record both names of the border post, the exact place and time of apprehension and the agency involved.

A hypothetical Georgian national stopped at Krakivets following a Polish international request needs a lawyer to identify the actual district court before asking the Lviv Court of Appeal for action. Determine whether the record concerns foreign-request detention, domestic criminal detention or immigration custody: they are distinct proceedings. An INTERPOL notice does not itself constitute a final Ukrainian surrender decision or authorise unlimited custody. Preserve the detention record and request copies of the prosecutor's motion and any judicial order.

The first 72 hours involve distinct legal clocks

Article 582 requires the apprehended person to be released if not brought before an investigating judge within 60 hours from detention, or if a legal bar to extradition is established. The same article requires the regional prosecutor's office to notify the appropriate Ukrainian central authority within 60 hours after detention; the latter informs the foreign authority within three days. These notification obligations do not replace the detainee's right to be brought before a judge. Under Article 583(5), the judge must consider a temporary-arrest motion as soon as possible, at the latest within 72 hours of detention. Neither rule creates a general 72-hour appeal period.

Temporary arrest before the full request normally has a 40-day maximum, unless the applicable treaty supplies another period. After a formal request, Article 584 permits extradition detention only as long as necessary, subject to an overall maximum of 12 months; these periods are not automatic detention orders. Crucially, Article 584(11) requires the investigating judge, on a prosecutor's application, to review the grounds at least once every two months. Under Article 584(12), a detainee, lawyer or legal representative may seek review by the judge no more than once a month. These are different routes, not a prosecutor-only review.

How to locate the detainee, counsel and an interpreter

The Ombudsman's directory lists Lviv Institution for Execution of Sentences No. 19 at 20 Horodotska Street, Lviv. This is a location to check, not proof that a detained relative has been admitted there: border detainees may be in another institution or moved. Request the name of the actual facility, its lawyer-access arrangements and the date and court of the next hearing. A court's address, an arrest location and a detention facility are three different things.

The 6 October 2026 Halytskyi hearing recorded the affected person, a lawyer, a prosecutor and an interpreter. Ask for confidential access to counsel, an appropriate interpreter, the detention protocol and translations of relevant decisions. Do not treat a person's ability to speak Polish or Russian as proof that they can understand Ukrainian criminal procedure or give informed consent to simplified extradition. If counsel is unavailable, Ukraine's free legal aid contact centre lists 0 800 213 103 (within Ukraine). Give it the exact name, date of birth, location and time of detention.

What the September–October 2026 Lviv rulings actually establish

In case 461/2460/26 the Halytskyi investigating judge refused on 11 September 2026 to change a personal obligation into extradition detention; a second application was refused on 6 October. These are case-specific first-instance decisions, not generally binding precedents. The 6 October ruling itself permits an appeal to the Lviv Court of Appeal within five days of pronouncement. Under CPC Article 395, the five-day appeal clock runs from delivery of the order copy for a person held in custody, and from receiving the copy for an appellant not summoned to the ruling. An appeal must first be available for that particular type of order; this clock is not the five-day judicial consideration period of Article 591. For an appealable investigating-judge order, Article 395(1) requires the appeal to be lodged directly with the court of appeal, not first filed through the district court.

The October ruling describes a Ministry of Justice surrender order dated 16 April 2026, planned coordination with Polish authorities and a pending international-protection application. The judge still examined individual flight-risk evidence, attendance at hearings and the timing of the prosecutor's new submission. Refusing detention does not cancel an operative extradition decision, compel release from every other legal ground or prevent a new properly justified custody application. For a similar case, bring dated proof of residence, compliance, health, family ties and the precise registration and status of a protection request, not merely an unsupported assertion that asylum was sought.

The October judge noted a further Lviv-specific problem: the prosecutor’s motion was dated 22 September, while the earlier personal-obligation duties expired on 24 September and the motion was lodged at court only on 1 October. A lawyer should compare the actual motion, court receipt stamp and expiry date before arguing whether continued or new restrictions are justified. This finding is individual, not a rule that every delayed motion fails.

Where to contest the Ukrainian surrender decision

A complaint against the central surrender decision follows CPC Article 591, not automatically the local custody-appeal route. When the person is held in custody, the complaint goes to the investigating judge in the area of detention; when a noncustodial preventive measure applies, it goes to the investigating judge in the territory of the relevant central authority, commonly Kyiv. The simplified-extradition procedure under Article 588 is different. The verified October Lviv ruling illustrates the separation: its local custody proceedings referred to a central Ministry decision whose challenge followed a different court route. A lawyer should check the actual custody status when identifying the Article 591 filing court.

Under Article 591(3), the investigating judge considers the complaint within five days of its arrival at court: this is a judicial consideration period, not a five-day filing deadline from arrest. Article 591(6) allows an appeal from the complaint ruling; paragraph 7 provides a narrowly limited prosecutor-only cassation route. The Supreme Court, in case 947/23713/22 (31 August 2023), held that a refusal to impose house arrest under Article 585 was not appealable by simply borrowing the Code's general appeal provision. Ask counsel to identify the exact order and specific statutory remedy. A separate Supreme Court judgment, 757/56198/21-k (23 March 2023), considered a filed protection application together with case-specific risks; it does not create automatic immunity from extradition.

Article 590(4) prohibits making a surrender decision while an application for refugee or complementary protection, or the specified review of that decision, awaits final determination. In Supreme Court case 757/56198/21-k the first protection approach preceded the central extradition decision; the Lviv case describes a protection request made later. Dates and proof of submission are essential: a later request does not automatically annul an earlier surrender order.

Article 590(3) also provides for organising physical surrender if the served central decision is not challenged in court within ten days. Obtain proof of service immediately and have counsel assess the applicable deadline; this ten-day rule differs from the five days allowed for the judge to consider a complaint after receipt under Article 591(3).

What to send to a lawyer before the next hearing

For a Polish request, check the 1957 European Convention on Extradition, binding declarations, reservations and any other operative instruments. Ukraine is not an EU Member State: the EU European Arrest Warrant is not the Ukrainian surrender mechanism. Whether an offence, sentence or protection concern prevents surrender requires the national-law analysis addressed in the linked Ukraine guides, not a prediction from a border post. Martial law does not in itself cancel all extradition procedures or remove the need for an individual judicial decision.

Before contacting Ukrainian criminal counsel, collect the arrest record with its hour, the precise crossing and detaining agency, the district court and case number, the custody location, the prosecutor's motion, any court order, the central surrender decision, translations and evidence relevant to detention risk. Keep a dated log of notifications and court service. Verify the proper filing court and the trigger for each deadline rather than assuming the Lviv Court of Appeal hears every application. Family members should protect the detainee's personal documents and avoid posting them online.

Documents for the first legal consultation

• Correct spelling of the detained person’s name, citizenship and date of birth.
• Crossing or street, real time of apprehension, police or border unit and case number.
• Court, next hearing, custody facility and means of confidential counsel access.
• Copies of the prosecutor’s motion, custody order, central decision and translations.
• Evidence of residence, compliance, medical or family needs and any protection filing.

Ukraine extradition procedure · Ways to challenge extradition from Ukraine · Related Volyn / Lutsk court guide.

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