Reformer of the week – Who Murdered Katya Gandziuk (advocacy group)
Who Murdered Katya Gandziuk is an advocacy group that has fought for investigating the death of whistleblower Kateryna Gandziuk since she was attacked with acid in the city of Kherson a year ago – on July 31, 2018. She died in a hospital on Nov. 4.
The five convicted perpetrators are Serhiy Torbin, Mykyta Grabchuk, Volodymyr Vasyanovych, Vyacheslav Vyshnvesky and Viktor Gorbunov. A court on June 6 sentenced them to prison terms ranging from three to six years in jail.
They had reached a plea bargain with investigators to soften the charges from murder to inflicting heavy injuries. It is not clear what the point of the bargain was, given that they did not name those who ordered the murder. The Who Murdered Katya Gandzyuk group saw this as an attempt to let the organizers escape punishment.
Oleksiy Levin (Moskalenko), Vladyslav Manger, a former member of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party, and Igor Pavlovsky – an aide to Mykola Palamarchuk, an ex-lawmaker from President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc – have been charged with ordering the attack on Gandziuk. They deny the charges.
Manger, who has been released on bail, was suspended as the speaker of Kherson Oblast’s legislature in March but was reinstated on the job in April.
The Pavlovsky case was sent to trial on July 30. Meanwhile, Pavlovsky’s house arrest has expired, and the Prosecutor General’s Office has not extended it, attributing it to “health concerns.”
Gandziuk’s father Viktor, and the “Who Murdered Katya Gandziuk?” group have also said that ex-Kherson Oblast Governor Andriy Gordeyev and his ex-deputy Yevhen Ryshchuk were implicated in the murder. They have not been charged yet and have denied the accusations.
Anti-reformer of the week – Pavlo Vovk
The Prosecutor General’s Office on July 30 summoned Kyiv Administrative District Court Chairman Pavlo Vovk and two other judges of his court to be charged and questioned in a criminal case on Aug. 2. Vovk denied all accusations of wrongdoing.
Vovk is accused of forgery, abuse of power, issuing unlawful rulings, negligence, bribery and unlawfully interfering in the work of other courts and a top judicial body, the High Qualification Commission of Judges. He is also accused of involvement in the issuing of unlawful rulings against protesters during the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.
The Prosecutor General’s Office and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine have published audio recordings implicating Vovk and other judges of his court in alleged crimes. In the recordings, voices alleged to belong to Vovk and other judges discuss the arrangement of fake lawsuits to suspend the authority of High Qualification Commission members and holding fake competitions to replace them.
In 2017 the Public Integrity Council, the judiciary’s civil society watchdog, vetoed Vovk as a candidate for the Supreme Court as not meeting integrity standards. Vovk’s income does not match his assets, the watchdog said.
In 2006 to 2007, Vovk was an aide to Serhiy Kivalov, a powerful ally of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych accused of influencing the judiciary. The recordings feature an alleged conversation between Vovk and Kivalov and a conversation involving an aide to Kivalov.
Vovk has also been accused of being tied to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who awarded a gun to him in 2014. In the recordings, Vovk says Avakov is helping him to appoint necessary people to the State Investigation Bureau.
In 2016 Vovk was also filmed by Radio Liberty meeting with Oleksandr Hranovsky, an ally of ex-President Petro Poroshenko accused of influencing the judiciary.
In the recordings, Vovk says he discussed keeping State Judicial Administration Chief Zenovy Kholodnyuk with Hranovsky, who had in turn discussed the issue with Poroshenko.
