Reformer of the week – Prosud
The AutoMaidan civil society watchdog on Feb. 20 presented as part of its Prosud judicial project a database of 337 judges accused of unlawfully trying protesters during the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.
As of Feb. 1, 55 out of the 337 judges had been fired for violations, 13 had been dismissed for other reasons and 42 had resigned voluntarily and kept their status and privileges, the AutoMaidan said.
Meanwhile, the High Qualification Commission of Judges has successfully vetted 65 judges involved in EuroMaidan cases and delayed decisions on 48 such judges. It has recommended firing only 15 judges accused of unlawfully trying EuroMaidan protesters.
Out of the 337 judges, 13 have been on trial over issuing unlawful rulings, and three of them have already been acquitted.
The Prosud (About Courts) project is devoted to the cleansing of Ukraine’s judiciary. The AutoMaidan, which runs the project, was set up in 2013 to unite car-based protesters and has turned into an anti-corruption watchdog since then.
Anti-reformer of the week – Pavlo Grechkivsky
The Congress of Lawyers of Ukraine on Feb. 15 re-elected Pavlo Grechkivsky as a member of the High Council of Justice for a second term.
The Congress of Lawyers was held in a remote ski resort in the village of Plavye in Lviv Oblast in what critics saw as an attempt to hide the selection process from the public.
The re-election of Grechkivsky, who has worked at the council since 2015, is illegal because Ukrainian law bans the re-election of High Council of Justice members, according to members of the Public Integrity Council. Grechkivsky claims that his re-election to the council is legal due to a change in the council’s name in 2016.
In 2016 Grechkivsky was charged with extorting a $500,000 for favorable court rulings with the help of Bohdan Lvov, who is currently a deputy chairman of the Supreme Court. Both of them deny the accusations.
Oleg Shklyar, who was arrested with the money, testified he had been planning to give it to Grechkivsky. The investigators also released a wiretapped phone conversation in which Grechkivsky instructs Shklyar to give him the bribe.
However, in 2018 Grechkivsky was acquitted by a court. Public Integrity Council member Roman Maselko argued that, despite the solid evidence of Grechkivsky’s guilt, the prosecutors had intentionally sabotaged the case by committing procedural violations and failing to catch Grechkivsky red-handed with the bribe.
Dmytro Sus, one of the prosecutors pursuing the Grechkivsky case, testified in court that Hennady Butkevych, the owner of the ATB store chain, had asked the prosecutors to go after Grechkivsky in exchange for $20,000 to $50,000. He said that Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko had ordered them to pursue the case and that the money was supposed to be divided between him and other prosecutors, including Volodymyr Hutsuyak and Olga Varchenko. The Prosecutor General’s Office and ATB did not respond to requests for comment.
Two of the judges who acquitted Grechkivsky, Volodymyr Buhil and Vitaly Tsyktich, had been accused of unlawfully trying EuroMaidan activists. But the High Council of Justice, of which Grechkivsky is a member, decided not to fire them, with Grechkivsky preparing the report on Buhil.
Grechkivsky’s sister used to be the wife of ex-People’s Front lawmaker Mykola Martynenko, a suspect in a major graft case. Grechkivsky also used to co-own 7.5 hectares of land with ex-High Commercial Court Artur Yemelyanov and was suspected by prosecutors of illegally privatizing it, according to a Radio Liberty investigation. Yemelyanov has been charged with interfering in the automatic distribution of court cases and issuing unlawful rulings.
Grechkivsky has declared a 363.6 square meter apartment in Kyiv, a Maybach luxury car, corporate shares worth Hr 48 million, $250,000 in cash, luxury jewelry and high-end watches. In 2014 he bought a Land Rover for Hr 150,000 – a price much lower than the average market price at that time.
