Whistleblower judge Larysa Golnyk lost another round in her fight against Ukraine’s dysfunctional judicial system on Sept. 24 when a court in Poltava acquitted a former deputy mayor, Dmytro Trykhna, whom she had filmed offering her a bribe.
Under the shouts “Shame!” and “Corrupt court!” Judge Yuriy Kulish announced he had found no proof of Trykhna’s guilt. Golnyk said she would appeal against the decision, according to the Poltavske TV report.
Golnyk, a judge of Poltava’s Oktryabrsky District Court, published in 2015 a video featuring Trykhna and former Poltava Mayor Oleksandr Mamai unsuccessfully trying to bribe her.
But it was her, not Trykhna or Mamai, who got in trouble.
Golnyk was suspended and said that Oleksandr Strukov, the chairman of the Oktiabrsky Court, was pressuring her and had even assaulted her, which Strukov denies.
In November 2017, unidentified men attacked and beat Golnyk when she was leaving the court building in Poltava.
When the court opened an investigation against Trykhna, then mayor Mamai was just a witness in the case, despite appearing in a video asking Golnyk to close a case on the illegal granting of land plots in the city to his stepdaughter.
“We need to close this case anyway,” a man who looks like Mamai says in the video.
In another video, a man who looks like Trykhna speaks with Golnyk for some time allegedly on behalf of the mayor, and mentions some “moral compensation” she would receive from Mamai for closing the case. “We are all the adult people,” the man says in the video, which was posted on video-sharing website YouTube.
“I’m not used to that,” says a woman with a voice resembling that of Golnyk in the video. “Maybe you’ve heard I don’t usually do that.” But then she agrees to meet later.
Both Trykhna and Mamai deny attempting to bribe Golnyk.
Golnyk later explained she was secretly meeting with Trykhna and Mamai and filming their conversations to uncover the corrupt officials.
“Without whistleblowers, there is no, and will be no fight against corruption,” she said in a post on her Facebook page on Sept. 25.
The court said it had decided to close the case against Trykhna because the period of three years during which evidence for the case can be collected had run out.
On Sept. 14, the deputies of Poltava City Council voted to sack Mamai from the post of mayor for multiple violations. On Sept. 17 Mamai said he didn’t recognize the validity of the session of the City Council and disputed his dismissal in court.
Golnyk still works in Poltava court, but she is suspended from presiding in court.
She applied as a candidate to the High Anti-Corruption Court, but has a low chance of obtaining a position there due to her having received an official reprimand.
In May, the High Council of Justice reprimanded Golnyk and docked her a month’s salary in what she said was revenge her whistleblowing activities. She was reprimanded for a Facebook post criticizing the authorities and for participating in a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada’s anti-corruption committee.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov contributed to the report.
