Halyna Chyzhyk – reformer of the week
Halyna Chyzhyk, a member of the Chesno civic watchdog, said on May 11 that the High Qualification Commission is backing controversial candidates in the selection of 120 new members of the Supreme Court.
She said that the Civic Integrity Council, a public watchdog, had vetoed 61 out of the 157 candidates interviewed by the commission because they do not meet integrity standards. However, the commission – a judicial body – has disagreed with the council’s rejection of 48 of these 61 candidates, and may override the vetoes by early June.
One of the vetoed candidates backed by the commission is Pavlo Vovk, a judge linked to Serhiy Kivalov, an ally of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, and President Petro Poroshenko’s grey cardinal and lawmaker Oleksandr Hranovsky.
Another troubling candidate is Yaroslav Romanyuk, the current Supreme Court chairman, who backed Yanukovych’s dictatorial laws, which would have gutted civil liberties, in January 2014. Meanwhile, in April a court allowed High Commercial Court Judge Artur Yemelyanov to take part in the Supreme Court competition. Yemelyanov has been charged with organizing a system of unlawful rulings, while his wife has 13 million Swiss francs on accounts in Liechtenstein.
The High Qualification Commission has refused to publish the results of voting by every member or divulge the methodology of assessment to make the competition more transparent.
Oleksandr Dovzhenko – anti-reformer of the week
Oleksandr Dovzhenko was appointed as head of Odesa Oblast’s Security Service of Ukraine branch on May 3.
Dovzhenko, who is subject to the lustration law on the dismissal of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s top officials, has escaped being fired due to gaining the status of a war participant — a common way of evading lustration.
He was a close ally of Yanukovych’s SBU chief Oleksandr Yakymenko, who has been charged with organizing the murder of EuroMaidan protesters in 2014 and financing Kremlin-backed separatists, and who is suspected of having ties to the Russian intelligence agencies.
President Petro Poroshenko has also sabotaged the lustration law by refusing to fire his Deputy Chief of Staff Oleksiy Dniprov, Kirovohrad Oblast Governor Serhiy Kuzmenko, Luhansk Oblast Governor Yuriy Harbuz and the the SBU’s top investigator, Grigory Ostafiychuk, according to the Justice Ministry’s lustration department.
The SBU’s reputation also suffered a blow when Radio Liberty on April 22 published evidence that the agency organized a fake protest against the Anti-Corruption Action Center.
The SBU has also recently triggered controversies when it cracked down on opponents of President Petro Poroshenko and searched investment bank Dragon Capital and IT company YouControl. The agency has also pressured natural gas traders allegedly in the interests of pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk and Poroshenko, who deny the accusations.
Meanwhile, the SBU has been criticized for refusing to give either the public or other state agencies access to their staff’s asset declarations, in what critics see as an effort to hide corrupt wealth.
