Reformer of the week – Serhiy Bondarenko
Judge Serhiy Bondarenko of Cherkasy Oblast’s Court of Appeals on June 27 won a victory in his long-running battle for justice with Volodymyr Babenko, the chairman of his court.
The High Qualification Commission, which had been dragging its feet on the issue for two years, asked the High Council of Justice to fire Babenko.
In 2015 Bondarenko released a recording of Babenko pressuring him to make an unlawful decision in 2013. However, Babenko is not being criminally prosecuted.
But another whistleblower judge, Larysa Golnik of Poltava’s October Court, still faces an uphill battle in her case.
On June 23, Poltava’s October Court asked the High Council of Justice, the Council of Judges and the Presidential Administration to punish Golnik for alleged ethical and legal violations in her criticism of the October Court and the authorities.
In 2015 Golnik published a video featuring Poltava Mayor Oleksandr Mamai and his former deputy Dmytro Trikhna unsuccessfully trying to bribe her.
Golnik was then suspended and said that October Court Chairman Oleksandr Strukov was pressuring her and even assaulted her, which Strukov denies.
The Council of Judges, the High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission have so far failed to punish or fire Strukov. In May the court re-elected Strukov as their chairman again.
A Poltava court is considering a case against Trikhna, but Mamai is merely a witness in the case, and there is no case against Strukov. The trial has seen no progress whatsoever since 2015 – allegedly because of Mamai’s political influence.
Wiki
Anti-reformer of the week – Georgy Tuka
Georgy Tuka, a deputy minister for the occupied territories, in June suggested getting rid of the nation’s democratic institutions and free speech due to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“To win, we must bring the media under state control,” he said in an interview on June 30 with the Ukrainska Pravda online newspaper. “It’s clear that during wartime the state is supposed to introduce censorship and deprive (the media) of free speech.”
He also said that Ukraine should get rid of its “pseudo-democratic system” for a certain period due to the war and pervasive corruption.
Restrictions on free speech and democracy may be introduced in connection with legislation on martial law and the state of emergency that is being considered now, President Petro Poroshenko’s critics say.
The statements come amid what critics see as a growing authoritarian trend, Poroshenko’s monopolization of power and an escalating attack on free speech by Ukrainian authorities.
Tuka performed an about-turn after becoming the Kyiv Post’s reformer of the week on May 6, 2016 due to his efforts as a volunteer to help the Ukrainian army and his attempts to fight corruption in Luhansk Oblast’s administration when he was the region’s governor.
Previously other famous volunteers helping the army, Tetiana Rychkova and Yury Biryukov, also damaged their reputation by supporting efforts to restrict the National Anti-Corruption Bureau’s independence and slavishly backing Poroshenko, respectively.
