Ukraine’s main judicial governance body, the High Council of Justice, is supposed to guarantee the integrity and ethics of judges under the law.
Instead, it has become the guarantor of judges’ impunity and corruption, civic activists argue.
On Sept. 1, the council unanimously refused to suspend from work several influential judges charged with corruption and obstruction of justice, the move needed to ensure that potentially corrupt judges don’t continue unlawful activities while authorities investigate them.
This includes no measures against Pavlo Vovk, head of the Kyiv District Administrative Court, whom the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, or NABU, has accused of running illegal schemes along with members of the High Council of Justice. NABU published recordings that support their claim on Sept. 1.
The council and its individual members did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Ironically, the same discredited High Council of Justice will play the main role in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s judicial reform, according to a bill that he submitted to parliament in June. This seems to mean that no genuine reform will take place, according to anti-corruption activists and legal experts.
Zelensky’s administration has obstinately refused proposals by civil society and Ukraine’s Western partners to cleanse the High Council of Justice by firing tainted members of the council.
“Under these circumstances, there’s no hope that Ukraine’s judiciary can be reformed,” Oleksandr Lemenov, head of anti-corruption watchdog StateWatch, told the Kyiv Post. “A small district court controls the High Council of Justice, the Constitutional Court and some judges in the Supreme Court. It looks as if a six grader has control over the headmaster and tells him what to do.”
Oleksandra Ustinova, a lawmaker from the 20-member Voice faction, said that Zelensky is repeating his predecessors’ mistakes.
“Instead of creating an independent law enforcement system and an independent judiciary, they think they can control the existing system,” Ustinova told the Kyiv Post.
However, according to her, it always ends the same way: Now the State Investigation Bureau, unreformed prosecutors and courts are trying to convict ex-President Petro Poroshenko — the president who actually created this system in the first place.
“While the president is in power, he thinks he can control the system,” she said. “Yet, as soon as you’re out of office, the system crushes you.”
Vovk case
The Prosecutor General’s Office pressed its first charges against Vovk and other judges of his court in August 2019. The judges were then charged with obstructing the work of the High Qualification Commission of Judges, issuing unlawful rulings and unlawfully interfering in the work of other judges.
The judges deny the accusations.
The High Council of Justice refused to suspend the judges for the first time back then, giving them carte blanche to continue committing what the NABU considers grave crimes.
The Kyiv Shevchenkivsky Court also helped the judges by rejecting a motion to extend the investigation and ordered the Prosecutor General’s Office to either close the case or send it to trial within five days. The prosecutors did not send it to trial, and the case stalled indefinitely after that.
Pavlo Vovk, head of the Kyiv District Administrative Court (adm.ki.court.gov.ua)
The NABU resurrected the case in July 2020, charging Vovk and other judges of his court with organized crime, usurpation of power, bribery and unlawful interference with government officials.
Two sources at the NABU and the Prosecutor General’s Office told the Kyiv Post that Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova had been blocking the case and refusing to apply for the judges’ suspension. However, under public pressure, Venediktova asked the High Council of Justice on Aug. 21 to suspend the judges.
But the council refused to suspend them on Sept. 1, claiming that the NABU has no evidence for their alleged crimes.
“Soon after the (presidential) elections, we heard Zelensky talk about judicial reform and about independent judges,” Ustinova said. “But when members of the High Council of Justice close to the president voted for this decision (not to suspend Vovk), we have an indication that Zelensky has merged with this corrupt court system.”
Oksana Blazhyvska and Tetiana Rozvalyaeva, who were appointed to the council by Zelensky, voted against suspending Vovk.
Zelensky’s spokeswoman Yulia Mendel responded that not only presidential appointees comprise the High Council of Justice.
“The High Council of Justice is a constitutional body that makes decisions by a majority of its members,” she told the Kyiv Post. “Any comment (by the president) on whether its decisions are legal or balanced can be interpreted as pressure on the council.”
The President’s Office also commented on the Vovk case by saying Zelensky had no right to interfere in the investigation.
This position sharply contrasted with Zelensky’s view on suspects in the case into the 2016 murder of journalist Pavel Sheremet: In December 2019, he took part in a news conference on the case and called them “possible murderers.” Since then, little evidence has been presented for their guilt.
NABU tapes
In the NABU recordings, Vovk mentioned the involvement of Andrii Ovsiienko, head of the High Council of Justice, and council members Oleh Prudyvus, Pavlo Grechkivsky, Viktor Hryshchuk and Mykola Khudyk in his alleged bargains with the council.
Specifically, Vovk discussed bargains between his court and the High Council of Justice on not punishing judges loyal to Vovk for disciplinary infractions and, instead, punishing judges disloyal to him.
The High Council of Justice “agreed not to touch” judges of the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal during the appeal stage, Vovk said. High Council of Justice member Pavlo Grechkivsky “helped us and talked to everyone and reached a bargain,” according to Vovk.
Vovk also mentioned a bargain with Grechkivsky on influencing the selection of Supreme Court judges.
“If Grechkivsky creates a coalition, everyone must bow to him and agree with him on who will win (Supreme Court jobs),” Vovk said.
Vovk also talked to Hryshchuk, another member of the High Council of Justice, about appointing a member loyal to Vovk to the council.
Andrii Ovsiienko, chairman of Ukraine’s High Council of Justice, speaks with the Kyiv Post at his office in downtown Kyiv on Aug. 26, 2020. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
According to the recordings, Vovk also tried to influence the election of the High Council of Justice’s chairman and replace Volodymyr Govorukha, former head of the council. In September 2019, Govorukha was replaced with Ovsiienko as chairman of the council.
“Pasha, he’ll have to be fired, we don’t fucking need him there,” Vovk told Grechkivsky about Govorukha’s appointment as head of the council in April 2019.
Vovk said in the recordings that he sought to “seize power in the High Council of Justice.”
“Zelensky is the only person in the country who can initiate the liquidation of the Kyiv Administrative District Court, yet for over a year, he’s been unable to submit such a bill to parliament,” Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, told the Kyiv Post. “Zelensky benefits from the court, and that’s why he and his people at the High Council of Justice are protecting Vovk.”
Judicial reform
According to Ukraine’s memorandum with the International Monetary Fund, Ukraine was supposed to create a commission including foreign experts in order to fire tainted members of the High Council of Justice if they violate ethics and integrity standards.
However, Zelensky’s new judicial reform bill does not envisage such a commission.
“Ukraine’s memorandum with the IMF states that we must reform the High Council of Justice and kill the monopoly (of Vovk’s court),” Shabunin said. “If we don’t comply by fall, we won’t receive the IMF’s money.”
According to the bill, the High Council of Justice will also prepare rules for hiring new members of the High Qualification Commission, another top judiciary governing body. Judicial experts say that this will also prevent real reform from happening.
Zelensky’s previous judicial reform bill was signed into law in 2019 but it failed to be implemented after the High Council of Justice deprived foreign experts of a major role in the reform, while the Constitutional Court canceled some of the bill’s clauses.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) officially told the High Council of Justice that foreign experts’ role cannot be fulfilled due to the council’s rules.
Council’s reputation
The current High Council of Justice, which will determine the outcome of the new judicial reform, has a toxic reputation among Ukraine’s civil society.
Under Poroshenko, the current High Council of Justice appointed 44 Supreme Court judges who judicial watchdog Public Integrity Council says violated integrity and professional ethics standards. The Public Integrity Council has also accused the High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission of effectively rigging the competition for Supreme Court jobs, which they denied.
The council has also appointed or failed to fire numerous tainted lower-level judges, prompting indignation among civil society.
Many of the council members face accusations of corruption and ethics violations. They did not respond to requests for comment.
One of the council members, Grechkivsky, was charged in 2016 with extorting $500,000 for favorable court rulings with the help of Bohdan Lvov, who is now a deputy head of the Supreme Court. Both of them deny the accusations.
Oleg Shklyar, who was arrested with the money, testified that 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.
Another member of the council, Oleksiy Malovatsky, was delegated by ex-President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc to the council and worked as a lawyer for Poroshenko in 2014, which prompted accusations of political bias.
Svitlana Shelest, who is also a member of the council, has received a $1 million apartment as a “gift,” according to the property register.
One of the council members, Larysa Ivanova, owns a 400-square-meter luxurious house near Kyiv and was vetoed by the Public Integrity Council when she ran for a Supreme Court job in 2017. Explaining the origin of her wealth, she said that she had earned necessary capital as a stoker and collector of strawberries in socialist East Germany.
“There won’t be any real judicial reform in Ukraine because Zelensky wants to further increase the powers of the High Council of Justice, which will expand the influence of the Kyiv District Administrative Court,” Shabunin said.
