The Public Council of International Experts or PCIE, a foreign expert panel, late on Jan. 21 decided not to veto two candidates for the High Anti-Corruption Court, including a controversial judge accused of unlawfully banning EuroMaidan Revolution protests.
The candidates are Inna Bilous, a judge at the Ternopil District Administrative Court, and Petro Feskov, a judge at the Mlyniv District Court in Rivne Oblast.
However, the foreign panel and the High Qualification Commisison vetoed nine candidates for the anti-corruption court late on Jan. 21: Petro Burda, Mykola Didyk, Vyacheslav Dmitiyev, Oleg Kimstachyov, Viktor Onufriyev, Ivan Solovyov, Dmytro Yagunov, Tetiana Chernysh and Ruslan Khytryk.
Another candidate who was supposed to be considered on Jan. 21, Oleksiy Omelyan, pulled out of the competition of his own accord.
The meetings of the PCIE and the High Qualification Commission on these candidates were broadcast online. However, the decisions on specific candidates were not made public, and it is not clear who voted for which candidate and what justification there was for not vetoing Bilous and Feskov.
The PCIE and the High Qualification Commission did not respond to requests for comment.
Controversial judge
One of the judges who escaped being vetoed, Bilous, banned protests from gathering near administrative buildings in Ternopil during the EuroMaidan Revolution from Dec. 10, 2013 through Jan. 7, 2014.
She argued that her ban applied only to areas adjacent to government buildings and not to other areas. Bilous also said she had aimed at preventing clashes and the blocking of government institutions.
In September 2013 she banned another peaceful protest, arguing that it blocked traffic and inconvenienced other citizens.
Roman Maselko, a lawyer for the AutoMaidan anti-corruption watchdog, and Kateryna Butko, an AutoMaidan activist, interpreted Bilous’ decision on the EuroMaidan protests as a violation of the right to peaceful assembly. Butko said the PCIE’s decision not to veto Bilous sets a dangerous precedent to allow judges involved in persecuting EuroMaidan protesters to keep their jobs.
Vitaly Tytych, ex-coordinator of the Public Integrity Council, 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.
According to Maselko and Tytych, during the EuroMaidan Revolution judges routinely received orders from the Presidential Administration to crack down on protesters.
Additionally, in her declarations since 2015, Bilous has failed to specify the value of her Hr 123,000 Mitsubishi Outlander car, despite the fact that she indicated the value in her 2013 declaration. She responded that she had lost the document that confirmed the price.
Bilous also failed to specify that her husband is a police official despite the legal requirement to identify family members who are state officials. She admitted it was an error and argued that she didn’t indicate it because they were de facto separated, despite still being officially married.
In the case of Judge Feskov, the PCIE initially had questions about land plots, declared assets and Feskov’s links to political parties. However, the PCIE said Feskov had given adequate and satisfactory answers and it was decided not to veto his candidacy.
Other candidates
The High Qualification Commission of Judges and the PCIE vetoed another eight candidates for the High Anti-Corruption Court on Jan. 18. They are to decide whether to veto another 29 candidates by Jan. 28.
Under the law, if a majority of both the High Qualification Commission and the PCIE vote for a candidate, she or he continues to participate in the competition, as long as at least three of the six PCIE members approve the candidate. If not, the candidate is vetoed.
The foreign panel will not consider vetoing 19 out of 55 candidates named by anti-corruption watchdogs on Jan. 9 as not meeting professional ethics and integrity standards.
Meanwhile, some candidates who will not be considered by the PCIE, and thus cannot be vetoed, have links to politicians and could have violated asset declaration rules.
The father of one of these candidates, legal scholar Kyrylo Legkykh, has a joint business with Valery Holovko, governor of Poltava Oblast and an ex-lawmaker from the Batkivshyna party. Legkykh said in a response to the Kyiv Post that he had given all of the necessary information to the relevant authorities.
Another candidate who will not be vetoed by the foreign panel, Judge Igor Chaikin, failed to declare his lease on a 1,856 square meter land plot in Kirovohrad Oblast and on a 61 square meter apartment in Dnipro Oblast in his 2014 asset declaration.
Chaikin also declared a 213-square-meter house in 2014 but has not declared either the house or income from its sale in subsequent declarations.
Anti-corruption watchdogs also say there are doubts on whether Chaikin’s declared income matches his assets.
Meanwhile, administrative penalties for traffic violations have been repeatedly imposed on Chaikin.
Chaikin’s wife, Olga Chaikina, failed to declare two houses and an apartment with a total area of 207 square meters in 2012 to 2015. She will not be vetoed by the PCIE either.
Before becoming a judge in 2012, Chaikina earned Hr 2.8 million ($350,000) that year by leasing real estate. However, since then she has not declared any income from property leases, and anti-corruption watchdogs concluded she was hiding that income. She has also repeatedly banned the filming of court hearings.
Chaikin and Chaikina did not respond to requests for comment.
