The criminal case against top judges accused of obstructing justice is finally making progress as public pressure to prosecute them is mounting. Initially Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko appeared to be reluctant to authorize the charges and was accused of attempting to block the case.
The Prosecutor General’s Office late on July 30 summoned the judges to be charged and questioned in a criminal case on Aug. 2.
The summonses were sent to Kyiv Administrative District Court Chairman Pavlo Vovk and two judges of the court, Yevhen Ablov and Igor Pogribinchenko, as well as to Ivan Shepitko, a judge of Odesa’s Suvorovsky District Court.
Lutsenko said on Facebook that the summonses had been sent after a deputy prosecutor general had heard a report on the case and authorized them.
“I’m wondering if any of the skunks who shouted ‘treason’ will apologize?” Lutsenko said in a reference to those who had accused him of sabotaging the case.
The charges were drafted by Sergii Gorbatuk, head of the in absentia cases unit at the Prosecutor General’s Office, and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and announced on July 26. It was up to Lutsenko or his deputy Serhiy Kiz to sign the charges but initially they appeared reluctant to do so.
Several of the court’s judges are accused of issuing unlawful rulings and illegally interfering in the work of other courts and a top judicial body, the High Qualification Commission of Judges. Gorbatuk and NABU released audio recordings implicating them in alleged wrongdoing.
The audio tapes suggest that the judges were discussing initiating fake lawsuits, organizing fake competitions for High Qualification Commission jobs and interfering in other judges’ decisions.
Lutsenko and his spokeswoman Larysa Sargan on July 29 said that the charges for the judges no factual grounds. Lutsenko said a decision on the charges would be made later.
Gorbatuk said in a July 28 interview with Deutsche Welle that the leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office was blocking criminal cases against judges of the Kyiv Administrative District Court. Lutsenko responded on Facebook that Gorbatuk “was lying.”
In the recordings, voices alleged to belong to Vovk and other judges discuss the arrangement of lawsuits by third persons to suspend the authority of High Qualification Commission members and holding fake competitions to replace them.
The Prosecutor General’s Office and NABU also said that Vovk and other judges of his court had illegally interfered in the State Investigation Bureau’s work.
In the alleged recordings, Vovk also appeared to unlawfully arrange a ruling by Jude Shepitko from Odesa’s Suvorovsky District Court to ban the qualification assessment of judges by the High Qualification Commission.
