State security guards on Jan. 19 did not let Oleksandr Tupytsky, head of the Constitutional Court, enter the court building, the Constitutional Court said in a statement.
“This is another attempt to unlawfully interfere in the activity of the head of the Constitutional Court and prevent him from fulfilling his duties in order to block the Constitutional Court’s work,” the court said in a statement, citing Tupytsky. “Tupytsky has been suspended from the position of a Constitutional Court judge by a presidential decree but he must fulfill administrative functions as the head of the court because Constitutional Court judges gave him such authority.”
The event follows a bitter standoff between Tupytsky and President Volodymyr Zelensky following a number of controversial decisions by the Constitutional Court and corruption scandals around the court’s chairman.
On Dec. 29, Zelensky signed a decree to suspend Tupytsky based on corruption charges against him.
The Constitutional Court refused to implement the decree, saying that it was unconstitutional. The court argues that only a majority of the Constitutional Court’s members can suspend one of its judges.
The Prosecutor General’s Office on Dec. 28 charged Tupytsky with unlawfully influencing and bribing a witness to make him give false testimony. He denies the accusations.
Newly leaked audiotapes implicate Tupytsky in receiving and extorting bribes in collusion with other people, according to an investigation published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Schemes program on Dec. 21.
Tupytsky has faced harsh public criticism since Oct. 27, when the Constitutional Court issued a ruling that effectively destroyed Ukraine’s entire asset declaration system for state officials, eliminating a crucial pillar of the country’s anti-corruption infrastructure. Like several other judges, he voted for the decision despite having a conflict of interest, according to the National Agency for Preventing Corruption.
Tupytsky also acquired land in Russian-annexed Crimea in 2018 and did not show this in his asset declaration, according to an Oct. 28 report by Schemes, an investigative branch of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Meanwhile, the Censor.net news site reported on Jan. 9 that Tupytsky was vacationing in Dubai at a luxury villa whose rent is worth Hr 300,000 ($10,700) per day. Tupytsky denied it, saying he was vacationing in the hotel near the villa. He said that the vacation cost him Hr 242,000 ($8,600).
