The High Qualification Commission of Judges on March 6 nominated at least 24 candidates with questionable integrity to the Supreme Court and the High Anti-Corruption Court.
The nominees for the High Anti-Corruption Court and the Supreme Court have yet to be approved by the High Council of Justice and appointed by the president.
One of the controversies dogging the competition is that some candidates jumped either to the top or the bottom of the final ranking without any clear reason. The commission has not yet explained the reasons behind its nominations, and has been accused of having an arbitrary assessment methodology for candidates.
The High Qualification Commission has denied accusations of wrongdoing.
Supreme Court
The commission nominated 78 candidates for extra jobs at the Supreme Court in addition to the 112 current jobs.
The Public Integrity Council had vetoed 31 Supreme Court candidates who made it to the last stage for violations of professional ethics and integrity standards, yet the High Qualification Commission nominated 16 out of these 31 questionable candidates for Supreme Court jobs. According to the Chesno anti-corruption watchdog, 24 of the nominees do not meet integrity standards.
Several Supreme Court nominees, including High Council of Justice Chairman Igor Benedysyuk and High Council of Justice members Tetiana Malashenkova, Natalia Volokovytska and Mykola Husak are accused of having a conflict of interest because the High Council of Justice appoints Supreme Court judges. They have denied there is such a conflict.
Georg Stawa, the ex-president of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice, told the Kyiv Post the judges should step down from the council as soon as possible due to this conflict of interest. However, they have refused to step down, although the High Council of Justice said they would just abstain from making decisions on Supreme Court nominees.
According to his official biography, in 1994 Benedysyuk was simultaneously a judge of a Russian court martial and a Ukrainian one. Russian citizenship was a necessary precondition of being a judge under Russian law, and Public Integrity Council members suspect he either used to have or still has Russian citizenship.
Benedysyuk denied having been a Russian citizen, but failed to clarify when he received his Ukrainian citizenship or explain how he could be a judge in Russia without having Russian citizenship.
Moreover, the Public Integrity Council said that, when he became a judge of the High Commercial Court, he violated the law under which only those who have been Ukrainian citizens for 10 years can be appointed to the court.
Benedysyuk, who still remains a judge, was also awarded a weapon by President Petro Poroshenko in 2015 even though the law bans such awards for judges, according to the Public Integrity Council. Benedysyuk, who was appointed to the High Council of Justice by Poroshenko, argued that the award was lawful.
He has also covered up for tainted judges as chairman of the High Council of Justice, according to the Public Integrity Council. Benedysyuk denies the accusations.
Benedysyuk has also been accused of violating conflict of interest rules by appointing his own former assistant Pavlo Grygorovych as a judge and refusing to recuse himself.
Malashenkova, another High Council of Justice member and nominee for the Supreme Court, worked as a lawyer for President Petro Poroshenko’s Ukrprominvest group in 2001 to 2005 and was a candidate for parliament from the Poroshenko Bloc in 2014. She was appointed to the High Council of Justice by Poroshenko in 2015.
The Public Integrity Council also accused Malashenkova of covering up for judges who unlawfully tried EuroMaidan protesters and violating asset disclosure rules. She denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
Another controversial nominee for the Supreme Court is Maksym Titov, the son of High Qualification Commission member Yuriy Titov, who has been accused of having a conflict of interest in this case, although he denies this. Titov is reportedly an associate of Serhiy Kivalov, a controversial ally of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, and a member of the supervisory board of Kivalov’s Odesa Judicial Academy.
Maksym Titov was also accused of unlawfully trying EuroMaidan protesters but denies all accusations of wrongdoing.
Some of the Supreme Court nominees have been investigated over illegally interfering in the automatic distribution of cases and issuing unlawful rulings at the High Commercial Court under former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Ex-High Commercial Court Chairman Viktor Tatkov and his ex-deputy Artur Yemelyanov have been officially charged in this case.
Those under investigation include Benedysyuk, Volkovytska and Serhiy Mohyl, a nephew of Kivalov. However, they have not been officially charged in the case and have denied accusations of wrongdoing.
Anti-corruption court
On March 6, the commission also nominated 39 candidates for the High Anti-Corruption Court, including eight candidates who had previously been identified by anti-corruption watchdogs as not meeting integrity standards.
The anti-corruption court’s legitimacy may also be undermined, since 10 tainted candidates who were rejected have filed lawsuits to be reinstated at the court, and there is also an appeal against the whole procedure of appointing its judges.
One of the nominees for the anti-graft court, Serhiy Bodnar, has no legal right to be a judge of the court because he had an agreement to represent the interests of President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc in court in 2017, according to several lawyers. The law on the anti-corruption court bans the appointment of anti-corruption judges who had agreements with political parties in recent years.
Bodnar argued that he had represented a party branch, not a party, and that the ban does not apply to this type of work.
Lawyers Roman Kuybida, Vitaly Tytych and Iryna Shyba dismissed Bodnar’s explanations as incorrect, telling the Kyiv Post that the legal ban applies to Bodnar, and he cannot be appointed as a judge of the anti-corruption court.
“The power of attorney that this candidate held to support his representation of the political party refers to an oral agreement which we interpret to mean a contractual relationship,” Ted Zarzeczny, a member of the Public Council of International Experts, a foreign advisory body, said on Jan. 22.
Another nominee for the anti-corruption court, Inna Bilous, banned protesters from gathering near administrative buildings in Ternopil during the EuroMaidan Revolution from Dec. 10, 2013 through Jan. 7, 2014. She denied accusations of wrongdoing.
Tytych argued that Bilous’ ban on peaceful assemblies was arbitrary and violated European standards, as the ban was applied to an unlimited number of protesters and to an arbitrarily broad area. He added that the ban also violated the standards of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
