Editor’s Note: The following article is based on research by the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv.
The judges who provided a blanket amnesty for illicit enrichment suspects with a February ruling have controversial backgrounds.
They include those who voted for a constitutional reform that allowed ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, ousted by the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2104, to usurp power; judges appointed by Yanukovych; and ones that have been linked to various corruption scandals. They have denied some of the accusations before, and the Constitutional Court did not respond to a request for comment on the issue.
The Constitutional Court ruled on Feb. 26 that the illicit enrichment law violated the presumption of innocence. However, this legal reasoning has been rejected as flawed and incorrect by numerous Ukrainian and foreign experts who studied the law.
“The decriminalization of illicit enrichment will mean a full amnesty for absolutely all officials with questionable assets, and therefore, will eliminate the whole anti-corruption reform in Ukraine,” the Anti-Corruption Action Center and other anti-corruption groups said in a joint statement on Feb. 27. “(The decision) will result in the closure of at least 50 cases of alleged illicit enrichment of top officials which are currently investigated by the National Anti-Corruption. Moreover, all officials who must file electronic asset declarations will receive an indulgence on questionable assets acquired over past two-and-a-half years.”
The groups said that the purpose of electronic asset declarations will be nullified.
The hearing on illicit enrichment was closed to the public. Four judges voted against the court’s decision: Ihor Slidenko, Viktor Kolisnyk, Vasyl Lemak and Serhiy Holovatyi, while 14 voted in favor.
Those in favor include:
Stanislav Shevchuk
Elected as chairman of the Constitutional Court in February 2018 with a mandate to reform the discredited and controversial body. One year later, he appears to have failed in that task.
Shevchuk claimed that the most recent version of the illicit enrichment law was in fact “obliging a defendant to collect evidence to prove his innocence,” which violates the Constitution by wrongly shifting the burden of proof away from the accuser and to the accused. “It is a tough decision but it is totally justified because the fight against corruption should be real, not a pretend one,” Shevchuk wrote on Facebook.
His brother, Rulav Oddr, owns 70 percent of Ukrainian Maritime Transport Company LLC. According to journalists from the investigative television program Nashi Groshi, the company has been investigated over alleged theft from state ammonia shipping firm Ukrtranskhimamiak by the Prosecutor General’s Office. In 2017, Oddr received dividends of Hr 1.1 million ($40,000) from this company. Oddr, whose previous name was Denys Shevchuk, was involved in attempts to undermine the EuroMaidan protests, according to Nashi Groshi. Oddr did not respond to a request for comment.
“Some of the media outlets have been actively engaged in false reporting about my allegedly unlawful activities, in a clear attempt to link it to, and discredit the election of my brother Stanislav Shevchuk as the chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine,” Oddr said on Facebook in February 2018. “”The allegations are absolutely false and baseless. My professional activities have always been transparent and conducted in full adherence of the law. Therefore, I stand ready to be audited by any law enforcement agency or have the baseless allegations investigated in any form or shape.”
Mykhailo Gyultay
Appointed on Sept. 21, 2010. He was one of the judges whose dismissal the Verkhovna Rada demanded in 2014 for canceling the 2004 constitutional reform and thus allowing Yanukovych to usurp power.
Specifically, the Constitutional Court canceled the 2004 constitutional amendments on expanding the Verkhona Rada’s powers and thus increased Yanukovych’s authority.
The court also issued a ruling under which lawmakers could switch from opposition parties to Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. Another Constitutional Court decision aimed at usurping power was a ruling authorizing the 2010 judicial reform, as a result of which Yanukovych stripped the Supreme Court of important powers and transferred them to more loyal courts, according to investigators.
According to records in Yanukovych’s Party of Regions’ alleged off-the-book ledger, judges from the Constitutional Court received $6 million from the Party of Regions for making rulings that helped Yanukovych usurp power.
Guilytay and other judges of the Constitutional Court have been investigated in the usurpation of power case. However, despite charges having been made against Yanukovych, there are still no formal charges against the Constitutional Court judges accused of helping Yanukovych usurp power. The Prosecutor General’s Office has been accused of covering up for the judges for political reasons, which is denied by the office.
The judges under investigation in the case have denied accusations of wrongdoing.
According to Gyultai’s electronic asset declaration, he bought a luxury Lexus RX350 car for only $6,300 in 2015. In December 2013, he bought a four-room apartment with a total area of 175.4 square meters.
Mykhailo Zaporozhets
Appointed to the court on Sept. 21, 2010. He was one of the judges whose dismissal the Verkhovna Rada demanded in 2014 for allowing Yanukovych to usurp power.
Media have reported that he has privatized an apartment with a total area of 105 square meters.
Natalya Shaptala
Appointed on Sept. 21, 2010. She was also one of the judges whose dismissal the Verkhovna Rada demanded for voting down the 2004 constitutional reform.
Her son Yevhen Shaptala is a judge of the Kyiv Economic Court of Appeal and a suspect in a corruption case. Her common-law husband Yuriy Shaptal bought an apartment worth Hr 2.6 million (around $105,000) in 2017. He is also a co-owner of Zakhid Aquatrade LLC. According to online anti-corruption website Youcontrol, the company has not made any profit for the last two years.
Oleksandr Tupytskyi
Appointed on May 15, 2013 by Yanukovych. He worked as a judge of the Kuyibyshevskyi District Court in Donetsk for 17 years, heading the court for seven years. From 2010, Tupytskyi worked as a judge of the Donetsk Economic Court of Appeal, and then as the head of courts in Lviv and Dnipro. However, during that time he issued no rulings, decrees or orders. His wife Olena Tupytska in the period from 2012 to 2014 was an assistant to a Party of Regions lawmaker who now collaborates with the Russian occupation forces in the Donbas.
Oleksandr Kasminin
Appointed on Sept. 19, 2013 by Yanukovych. He was the subject of a journalistic investigation by the Schemi (Schemes) television program regarding his failure to declare a land plot with an unfinished construction.
His wife received the land plot – one of several allocated by Poltava City Council. The state received no money for the land plots, which had an estimated market value of about $20,000 each.
His family own an apartment with a total area of 150 square meters in Kyiv, valued at more than Hr 5 million (around $180,000). It had been a state-owned apartment but it was later privatized. Kasminin expressed a dissenting opinion regarding the unconstitutionality of draft amendments to the Constitution on Ukraine’s membership of the European Union and the NATO (all judges in the court, except for Kasminin, recognized it as constitutional).
Iryna Zavgorodnya
Appointed by parliament in 2018, in violation of competitive selection rules. Her husband Serhiy Zavgorodny reportedly has Russian citizenship. Zavgorodnya has not reported his income in her declarations since 2015. In 2012 they obtained a house worth more than Hr 1 million ($125,000). Zavgorodny has owned a BMW X4 worth Hr 997,000 (around $75,000) since October 2014. Zavgorodny’s income amounted to Hr 941,859 in 2014, but it is unknown whether he had savings at that moment.
Oleksandr Lytvyn
Appointed on May 15, 2013. In 2014, he sold a vehicle for Hr 149,900 (around $11,000) and bought a BMW Mini Cooper for Hr 370,000 (around $28,000), while the total declared income of his family amounted to Hr 440,000 (around $34,000).
His wife has not had income since 2014. But in 2015, she reported owning $25,000 in cash in her asset declaration. The judge also said he had $20,000 in cash himself. On Nov. 29, 2017, Lytvyn’s wife bought an apartment with a total area of 66.6 square meters for Hr 2 million (around $80,000). They spent all of their cash and received a loan of Hr 1.1 million (around $44,000) from Dmytro Yamkovyi.
Mykola Melnyk
Appointed by parliament in 2014. In 2012-2014 he was an adviser on legal issues at the Razumkov Center, an opinion polling agency.
His wife, Ulyana Melnyk, is the owner of an apartment with a total area over 159 square meters valued at more than Hr 1 million (around $200,000) in 2006. His wife reported in her asset declaration her use of an unfinished building with a total area of 316 square meters. (the owner is the National Academy of Sciences). The vehicle used by the judge since 2013 is registered in the name of a relative, Oksana Melnyk.
Oleg Pervomayiskyi
Appointed by parliament in 2018 in violation of competitive selection rules. He owns an apartment with a total area of 108 square meters.
Serhiy Sas
Appointed by parliament in 2014. In 2012, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada as a representative of the Batkivshchyna Party. After his appointment, he resigned as a lawmaker. From 2007 to 2012 he was a member of the Group for Inter-Parliamentary Relations with the Russian Federation.
