Kyiv’s Shevchenkivsky Court on Nov. 7 ordered the Prosecutor General’s Office to either close a high-profile case against judges of the Kyiv Administrative District Court or send it to trial.
The case, which has been in the spotlight since August, involves some of Ukraine’s most controversial and politically influential judges. They are charged with obstructing justice and issuing unlawful rulings.
The President’s Office, prosecutors, judges and top judicial officials have been accused of trying to sabotage the case due to their alleged dealings with one of the accused, Pavlo Vovk, former head of the Kyiv Administrative District Court and currently a judge at the court.
The President’s Office and the Shevchenkivsky Court did not respond to requests for comment.
Court sabotage?
The prosecutors had applied to extend the pre-trial investigation period by three months because they are waiting for forensic experts to examine audio tapes implicating the judges in wrongdoing. However, the Shevchenkivsky Court rejected their motion.
Yulia Malashych, one of the prosecutors working on the case, told the Kyiv Post that the ruling cannot be appealed. She said that she would announce prosecutors’ decision on the case on Nov. 11.
She previously stated that the case might have to be closed.
Malashych had previously accused the Shevchenkivsky Court of trying to bury and sabotage the case.
“The court ruling is a crime that intentionally kills the case,” Sergii Gorbatuk, the former top investigator in charge of cases into the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution, told the Kyiv Post. Gorbatuk and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine previously initiated the case against the top judges, but it was later transferred to the Security Service of Ukraine.
Malashych also said on Nov. 5 that prosecutors had suspended the case because they needed to question a witness who had departed the country for Spain. Had they not suspended it, the investigation might have to be closed.
Powerful allies?
On Aug. 20, the High Council of Justice refused to suspend the top judges of the court despite the charges against them.
Roman Ratushny, the founder of a group that fights illegal construction in Kyiv’s Protasiv Yar neighborhood, wrote on Facebook that members of his group had seen High Council of Justice members Volodymyr Hovorukha and Andriy Ovsienko enter the Presidential Office on the eve of the council’s decision on Vovk. He said that, according to his information, the council members discussed keeping Vovk on his job with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan.
The High Council of Justice told the Slidstvo.info investigative journalism project that Hovorukha and Ovsienko had visited the Presidential Office to discuss judicial reform. Bohdan did not respond to requests for comment.
Substance of charges
On Aug. 2, the Prosecutor General’s Office pressed charges against Vovk and two other judges of the Kyiv Administrative District Court, Yevhen Ablov and Igor Pogribinchenko. It also filed charges against Ivan Shepitko, a judge of Odesa’s Suvorovsky District Court.
All four judges were charged with obstructing the work of the High Qualification Commission of Judges. Vovk, Pogribichenko and Shepitko were also charged with issuing unlawful rulings, and Vovk and Ablov were charged with unlawfully interfering in the work of other judges.
The judges have denied all accusations of wrongdoing.
Shepitko is also accused of issuing an unlawful ruling on Vovk’s orders to ban the qualification assessment of judges by the High Qualification Commission.
According to the summonses previously issued for them, the judges have also been investigated over alleged forgery, abuse of power, negligence, bribery and the issuing of unlawful rulings against protesters during the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution, which deposed Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych.
In recordings published by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and former investigator Gorbatuk, voices alleged to belong to Vovk and other judges discuss arranging fake lawsuits to suspend the authority of High Qualification Commission members and holding fake competitions to replace them.
The recorded voices, including the one believed to be Vovk, also discussed taking bribes for court rulings and the acquisition of expensive jewelry and old coins.
