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Reformer of the week – Vitaly Ustymenko
Vitaly Ustymenko, the leader of the Odesa branch of the AutoMaidan non-governmental group and a vehement critic of Odesa Mayor Hennady Trukhanov, was attacked and stabbed in Odesa on June 5.
Ustymenko, one of Odesa’s foremost anti-corruption activists, said that the assailants had tried to stab him in the kidneys, but missed, instead slashing his thigh and buttocks and hitting him in the head, leaving him bloodied but only lightly injured.
Ustymenko has waged an all-out war against the alleged corruption schemes of Trukhanov and his allies and businessmen Alexander Angert and Vladimir Galanternik.
In February, Ustymenko was beaten by pro-Trukhanov thugs during an arrest hearing for the mayor in a corruption case. He was attacked after criticizing the court for releasing Trukhanov without bail. He accused the mayor of being corrupt and a pro-Russian separatist.
Trukhanov is accused of embezzlement worth Hr 100 million.
In November, documentary evidence emerged that Trukhanov is a Russian citizen, in a database on the site of Russia’s Federal Tax Service. The database shows his name, date of birth, Russian passport number and Russian individual tax number. Trukhanov has denied having a Russian passport.
Documents published by Slidstvo.info indicate Trukhanov owns a secret network of offshore firms that control companies that have received city contracts.
Trukhanov, as well as his associates and Odesa businessmen Alexander Angert and Vladimir Galanternik, have been accused of spearheading corruption in Odesa. According to an Italian police dossier, Trukhanov and Angert were members of a mafia gang in the 1990s.
Trukhanov, Angert and Galanternik deny all accusations of wrongdoing.
Anti-reformer of the week – Regis Brillat
Regis Brillat, an advisor to the Council of Europe’s Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland in Ukraine, lavished praise on the High Qualification Commission in a June 6 interview with the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
“I’m stunned by the work carried out by the commission over the past two years,” he said. “…The commission carried out a comprehensive selection procedure for Supreme Court judges based on the highest level of professional competence and integrity… I believe the commission carried out this task effectively and successfully.”
Brillat also said he was “convinced” the commission would successfully carry out the vetting of lower-court judges, the competition for the High Court for Intellectual Property and the competition for the anti-corruption court.
Jagland claimed earlier that the Supreme Court had been appointed through a comprehensive procedure aimed at choosing the most professional candidates. Meanwhile, Council of Europe expert Danute Jociene said in February that the Public Integrity Council has no right to criticize judges for issuing a specific ruling.
Meanwhile, Support for the Implementation of the Judicial Reform in Ukraine, a Council of Europe project headed by Andriy Kavakin, has given a grant to the Association of Lawyers of Ukraine. The association has consistently lambasted the Public Integrity Council.
The Public Integrity Council, the judiciary’s civil society watchdog, believes the Supreme Court competition was rigged in favor of government loyalists. The High Qualification Commission denies the accusations.
Thirty discredited judges who do not meet integrity standards (according to the Public Integrity Council) were nominated for the Supreme Court by the High Qualification Commission, and 29 of them were approved by the High Council of Justice. Poroshenko has already appointed 27 of them to the Supreme Court (out of 115 appointees). These judges have undeclared wealth, participated in political cases, made unlawful rulings (including those recognized as unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights) or are being investigated in corruption cases.
The new Supreme Court’s only deputy chairman is Bogdan Lvov. He is under investigation in a graft case against Pavlo Grechkivsky, a member of the High Council of Justice – the body that appointed Lvov. According to the investigators, Grechkivsky promised to help in a legal dispute with Lvov’s assistance for $500,000.
Lvov is also under investigation as an alleged accomplice of ex-High Commercial Court Chairman Viktor Tatkov and his deputy Artur Yemelyanov, who have been charged with unlawfully interfering in the automatic distribution of cases.
The Council of Europe did not respond to a request for comment.
