Reformer of the week – Larysa Tsokol
Pechersk Court judge Larysa Tsokol is reportedly facing pressure from the authorities after releasing former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili from custody on Dec. 11.
The High Council of Justice on Dec. 22 opened an internal probe against Tsokol in connection with two complaints against her filed in early 2017, and she may be fired. The council denied any links between the probe and the Saakashvili case.
Unusually for a Ukrainian judge, Tsokol completely rejected prosecutors’ arguments and ruled against the authorities. She said the prosecutors had failed to provide evidence to justify placing any restrictions on Saakashvili.
Tsokol ruled that Saakashvili’s detention by the Security Service of Ukraine, prosecutors and police without a court warrant and other legal grounds on Dec. 5 was unlawful. She added that the prosecutors’ decision to put Saakashvili on a wanted list was also unlawful.
The judge also referred to contradictory testimony allegedly given by unidentified SBU agents “Hare” and “Wolf.” The alleged events to which the agents referred as having happened in the past took place after the agents mentioned them, the judge said.
“These materials are not convincing and sufficient enough to decide on imposing restrictions on suspect Mikheil Saakashvili,” Tsokol said. “…The prosecutors also failed to provide any evidence that there are risks (of Saakashvili fleeing) and to prove that house arrest is needed to prevent them.”
Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has accused Saakashvili of accepting funding from fugitive oligarch Serhiy Kurchenko, an ally of ousted ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, to finance anti-government demonstrations and plot a coup d’etat.
Saakashvili, who was arrested on Dec. 8, believes that the case is a political vendetta by President Petro Poroshenko. The prosecutors’ alleged evidence against Saakashvili was dismissed by independent lawyers as being very weak.
Meanwhile, Kyiv Court of Appeal Judge Oleh Prysyazhnyuk, who will preside over the Jan. 19 hearing on Saakashvili’s house arrest, upheld the verdict in the criminal case against Lutsenko, then an opposition politician, in 2012. The Lutsenko case has been recognized as political by Ukrainian and European authorities.
David Sakvarelidze, a Saakashvili ally, said on Dec. 17 that he believes Lutsenko would use Prysyazhnyuk’s background to pressure him in the Saakashvili case.
In April Prysyazhnyuk also released riot police officer Vitaly Honcharenko, who has been charged with murdering EuroMaidan protesters, from custody, and Honcharenko fled to Russia.
The Kyiv District Administrative Court rejected Saakashvili’s application for political asylum on Jan. 3 – a decision he said the authorities could illegally use as an excuse to deport or extradite him, although his deportation or extradition as a stateless permanent resident and a suspect in a criminal case is banned by Ukrainian law.
Anti-reformer of the week – Valentyna Simonenko
The High Council of Justice on Dec. 28 approved the appointment of Valentyna Simonenko, head of the Council of Judges and a judge of the old Supreme Court, to the new Supreme Court. Her credentials have yet to be signed by President Petro Poroshenko.
Simonenko has been vetoed by the Public Integrity Council, a civil society watchdog. However, the veto has been overridden by the High Qualification Commission and ignored by the High Council of Justice.
Her sister serves Russian occupation authorities in Sevastopol as an official, while her ex-husband had business ties to occupied territories while they were still married, and she visited the areas after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the Public Integrity Council said. Simonenko argued that she disagreed with her sister on politics and that she had nothing to do with her ex-husband’s activities.
Simonenko has also criticized judicial reform, lambasted Serhiy Bondarenko, a whistleblower judge pressured by his boss, failed to punish judges who persecuted EuroMaidan demonstrators, lashed out at electronic asset declarations and criticized the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Public Integrity Council said. Simonenko argues that she has done everything in her power to help whistleblower judges and punish those involved in political cases.
She has failed to declare firms owned by her ex-husband but said he had not informed her of them.
As many as 30 discredited judges deemed corrupt or dishonest by the Public Integrity Council were nominated for the Supreme Court by the High Qualification Commission in July, and 29 of them were approved by the High Council of Justice in September to December. Poroshenko has already appointed 27 of them to the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, Poroshenko on Dec. 29 also triggered a controversy by appointing for life three judges who are accused of unlawfully trying EuroMaidan activists – Svitlana Zakharchuk, Maryna Antonyuk and Maria Zelinska.
On the same day, he signed decrees that liquidate most of Ukraine’s 700 courts and may be an attempt to establish total presidential control over the judiciary, legal experts told the Kyiv Post.
The newly-created courts will have to consider existing cases from scratch, which could lead to the collapse of high-profile corruption cases, investigations into the murder of more than 100 EuroMaidan protesters and many other cases, unless a special law allowing them to continue old cases is passed.
After blocking the anti-corruption court’s creation for more than a year, Poroshenko submitted to parliament a bill on an anti-corruption court in December. However, civil-society groups and opposition lawmakers lambasted the bill because they believe it does not guarantee the selection of independent and honest judges. The bill has also been criticized by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
