Judges of the Kyiv Court of Appeals who on March 13 will consider State Fiscal Service Chief Roman Nasirov’s appeal against his arrest on suspicion of corruption may be handpicked for political reasons, a report on the court’s website indicates.
Three of the five judges chosen for the case – Viktor Hlynyany, Denys Masenko and Valery Lashevych – have been accused of having links to President Petro Poroshenko’s top ally and lawmaker Oleksandr Hranovsky, who denies them. Hranovsky has been largely viewed as a person in charge of the connections with the judicial system and prosecutors in the president’s party.
The court did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Kyiv’s Solomyansky Court arrested Nasirov, an ex-lawmaker from President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc, and set bail at Hr 100 million ($3.7 million) on March 7. Nasirov’s lawyers have filed an appeal to cancel the arrest and bail, while the prosecutors are seeking to increase the bail to Hr 2 billion ($74 million).
Ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and reformist lawmaker Sergii Leshchenko claim that Poroshenko has instructed judges to cut the bail to Hr 10 million ($370,000). Poroshenko has denied involvement in the case.
Nasirov is suspected of illegally allowing participants of an alleged corrupt scheme at state gas producer Ukrgazvydobuvannya to delay tax payments, causing losses to the state of Hr 2 billion ($74 million.)
Under Ukrainian law, cases must be distributed to judges randomly and automatically, and interference in the process is illegal.
However, only five out of the court’s 35 judges in charge of criminal cases were eligible on March 7 for the distribution of the Nasirov case, and all five were chosen for the case.
As many as 12 judges were not eligible because they are on vacation but the report does not say why the remaining 18 judges were removed from the process.
“When only five judges out of 35 are allowed to take part in the automatic distribution of cases, I have doubts as a lawyer because this resembles manipulation,” Yevgeniy Maleieiev, head of real estate developer Arricano’s legal department, told the Kyiv Post.
In contrast to the Nasirov case, 25 judges had been eligible for the consideration of another criminal case at the Kyiv Court of Appeal previously on the same day.
Ukrainian courts have been accused of manipulating the automatic distribution of cases by unexpectedly sending undesirable judges on vacation or sick leave, shutting down the distribution system through power blackouts or claiming that all other judges have a different specialization or are considering other cases. Such interference is allegedly aimed at choosing judges loyal to the Presidential Administration.
The judge who will preside over the March 13 hearing is Hlynyany. His son was appointed last year to the prosecutorial department which is often accused of links to Hranovsky and Poroshenko’s top ally and lawmaker Ihor Kononenko, which could constitute a conflict of interest for Hlynyany. Previously his son had been in charge of criminal cases at the Kyiv Court of Appeal.
Hlynyany has received a record high number of complaints against him: 35 in 2012 to 2015, according to the Prosud civic activist group. Most of them were related to his refusal to disqualify himself from criminal cases.
Hlynyany, Masenko and Lashevych have consistently issued rulings in favor of the Presidential Administration. Specifically, they have ruled against Gennady Korban and Ihor Mosiychuk – political opponents of Poroshenko.
Lashevych, as well as two other judges on the panel who will consider the appeal in the Nasirov case – Ivan Rybak and Tetiana Rosik – cut the bail for Ruslan Zhurilo, a suspect in a corruption case investigated by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, from Hr 100 million to Hr 12 million on March 9. Zhurilo is an associate of ex-lawmaker Mykola Martynenko working at United Mining and Chemical Company.
Critics claim that Poroshenko has a direct interest in making sure that Nasirov escapes justice.
Fugitive lawmaker Onyshchenko, a suspect in the same corruption case that involves Nasirov, has claimed that Poroshenko instructed Nasirov to delay tax payments for Onyshchenko’s gas firms and used the unpaid tax money to finance Poroshenko’s political projects.
Poroshenko has repeatedly denied Onyshchenko’s allegations, dismissing them as a smear campaign orchestrated by the Kremlin.
