Reformer of the week – Oleksandra Ustinova
Oleksandra Ustinova, an expert at the Anti-Corruption Action Center, is under investigation by the police for allegedly “thwarting” a journalist’s activities.
“The fact that this criminal case was opened is a negative signal, and we assess it as an effort to intimidate anti-corruption activists,” Transparency International Ukraine said on May 21.
The case was initiated by pro-government video blogger Vsevolod Filimonenko, who also claims to be a journalist. In May 2017, Ustinova was met at Borispyl Airport by Filimonenko and other people she suspected of working for the Security Service of Ukraine as part of a crackdown on anti-corruption activists.
Ustinova said they asked her about the money she had spent on her trip. She also noted that some of the people were the same as those who had filmed the house of Vitaly Shabunin, head of the anti-graft center’s executive board.
Shabunin is currently on trial on charges of beating Filimonenko.
In June 2017, Filimonenko approached Shabunin when unknown people served him summons to a military enlistment office and started asking him questions about his military service. Shabunin then hit Filimonenko in the face, saying that it was payback for Filimonenko insulting Ustinova and making her cry. Filimonenko then attacked Shabunin with pepper spray.
Shabunin’s lawyers argue that medics had initially found no injuries to Filimonenko, and his injuries were recorded only two weeks after the June 8 incident, in what they suspect to be a falsified examination.
Anti-reformer of the week – Dovydas Vitkauskas
Dovydas Vitkauskas, a European Union expert, has constantly praised what he claimed to be the unprecedented openness and transparency of Ukraine’s Supreme Court competition last year at public events and in his articles.
Vitkauskas, who did not respond to request for comment, heads the Support for Justice Sector Reforms in Ukraine project.
Vitkauskas’ project has also been used to finance psychological tests for Supreme Court candidates. These have been criticized because they are essentially corporate loyalty tests that give more points to dependent candidates than to independent ones, which undermines the whole point of judicial independence.
One of the candidates, Maxim Selivanov, dropped from the top of the ranking to the bottom because the psychological tests showed he had never had a boss before.
Vitkauskas has also consistently claimed that the role of civil society in Ukraine’s judicial reform is unprecedented worldwide, while in fact in his native Lithuania civil society representatives play a bigger role in appointing judges.
The European Union spent 8.6 million euros on Vitauskas’ project in 2014 to 2017.
The Public Integrity Council, the judiciary’s civil society watchdog, believes the Supreme Court competition had been rigged. The High Qualification Commission denies the accusations.
First, during the practical test stage of the Supreme Court competition, some candidates were given tests that coincided with cases that they had considered during their career, which was deemed a tool of promoting political loyalists.
Second, the High Qualification Commission allowed 43 candidates who had not gotten sufficient scores during practical tests to take part in the next stage, changing its rules amid the competition. Members of the Public Integrity Council believe that the rules were unlawfully changed to prevent political loyalists from dropping out of the competition.
Third, the High Qualification Commission and the High Council of Justice refused to give specific reasons for assigning specific total scores to candidates and refused to explain why the High Qualification Commission has overridden vetoes by the Public Integrity Council on candidates who do not meet ethical integrity standards.
