In a nation where judges earn pauper wages and are notorious for issuing verdicts at the behest of politicians, Ukraine is only now starting to clean house.
Ukraine is starting to revamp its notoriously corrupt and politically subservient judicial system. The law on fair trial was approved in February, introducing new ways to hold judges accountable, improve their work and create more transparency. At the same time, an internal cleansing of the system is being carried out, beginning with parliament’s decision to strip several judges of the infamous Kyiv Pechersk Court of their immunity.
The Pechersk Court
The Pechersk Court discredited itself during the tenure of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, when it issued a number of politically motivated rulings, including guilding verdicts against former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko. Both rulings were condemned by the European Court of Human Rights.
Even after the collapse of the Yanukovych regime, the court’s unjust practices continued. One high-profile example was granting of bail to former Berkut chief Dmytro Sadovnyk, who was charged with giving an order to shoot EuroMaidan protesters. The court also released on bail the former head of the Party of Regions, Oleksiy Yefremov, who was suspected of abuse of office and forgery.
“Everyone should be equal before the law, including the judges,” says Virgilijus Valancius, team leader of the European Union project, Support to Justice Sector Reforms in Ukraine, which advises Ukraine’s government on judicial reform. “Persons in charge of issuing indictments and making decisions on pre-trial detention usually take into consideration a number of circumstances. However, any case [that involves the] deprivation of liberty should be performed strictly in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code.”
In February, parliament allowed for the arrest of Pechersk Court judge Rodion Kireyev, who is charged with delivering an unlawful verdict against Tymoshenko in 2011. She remained imprisoned until Feb. 22, 2014, the day her political nemesis Yanukovych fled power. Kireyev has been on a wanted list since summer.
Also recently, three other Pechersk Court judges – Oksana Tsarevych, Viktor Kytsyuk, and Serhiy Vovk – have been stripped of their immunity.
Vovk is suspected of issuing an unlawful ruling that deprived legal ownership of property, while Tsarevych and Kytsyuk have been charged with unlawful rulings targeting activists of the AutoMaidan, the organizers of car protests during the EuroMaidan Revolution. The General Prosecutor’s Office also recently launched criminal proceedings against Vovk over the unfreezing of accounts of former agriculture minister and close Yanukovych ally Mykola Prysyazhnyuk, who is suspected of abuse of office and the massive embezzlement of state funds.
Kytsyuk and Tsarevych were also involved in the court’s investigation that implicated Tymoshenko in the 1996 murder of Donetsk businessman and member of parliament Yevhen Shcherban. The case was later closed for lack of evidence. Vovk delivered the verdict in Lutsenko’s case, which was later slammed by the European Court for Human Rights for being arbitrary.
Serhiy Vlasenko, a lawmaker in Tymoshenko’s party who acted as her defense in court, has filed a draft law calling for the liquidation of the Pechersk Court, the dismissal of its current staff, and the recruitment of new staff. “The Pechersk Court is a symbol of the unlawfulness during the time of Viktor Yanukovych,” he says. “I think such symbols have to be liquidated like the Bastille during the French Revolution.”
Law on fair trial
Ukraine’s 9,000 judges will be obliged to pass qualification exams in order to be able to continue their work, according to the new law on fair trials that comes into force on March 28. The law also restarts the operations of the High Council of Justice, a body that oversees the work done by judges and has the authority to dismiss them. Its work was suspended for almost a year after its members were dismissed when Yanukovych’s government was ousted, allowing for numerous judges to get away with unlawful rulings made during the Euromaidan Revolution. The law introduces new competitive procedure for hiring and selecting members of the Council and recruitment already started. A regular evaluation of the work by judges will be launched while the list of disciplinary offenses and sanctions is expanded, according to the new law.
Experts from the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe working with Ukrainian officials welcomed the law as a significant step towards implementing comprehensive judicial reform. “In my opinion, the newly adopted law is a good step for the reform of the judiciary system of Ukraine that will bring Ukraine’s judiciary closer to the European standards,” Valancius says. He also lauds the evaluation of judges as an important novelty.
The opportunity to film court hearings without getting special permission from the court, which is now guaranteed by the new law, will increase the level of transparency of court processes, according to Natalia Stupnitska, project manager of OSCE’s rule-of-law unit. At the same time, according to the law, the president holds the right to liquidate and reorganize courts and appoint judges, which raises fears of continued political influence on the courts.
The Venice Commission has recommended a ceremonial role for the president regarding the appointment and dismissal of judges, according to Stupnitska. But in several OSCE member states such as Lithuania and the Czech Republic, laws allow for similar presidential powers as in Ukraine now, she says.
Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected].
