Controversial judge Pavlo Vovk once again proved he’s not going to comply with the law as he refused to show up at a court hearing in the corruption case against him.
After Vovk repeatedly ignored hearings, the High Anti-Corruption Court authorized the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) to bring the judge to a bail hearing by force.
But when the NABU detectives tried to do so on Feb. 8, Vovk was nowhere to be found.
Vovk, head of the Kyiv District Administrative Court, faces charges of organized crime, abuse of power, bribery and unlawful interference with government officials. Vovk denies the accusations.
The country’s entire law enforcement system has faced accusations of sabotaging the case due to Vovk’s political connections.
Vovk said on Facebook on Feb. 8 he believed the warrant for him to be brought to the hearing to be unlawful and was not going to comply with it.
A NABU source told the Kyiv Post that the detectives looked for Vovk at his office and in his home, but he wasn’t there. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
The NABU will try to bring Vovk to a bail hearing by force again on Feb. 16.
The NABU source said, however, that this could continue indefinitely because Vovk can easily ignore such rulings in the future.
The NABU asked Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova to authorize an arrest warrant for Vovk months ago, according to the source, but she refused to do it, saying the request was unjustified. The Prosecutor General’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
Stalled case
Vovk has ignored the NABU summonses sent to the Kyiv District Administrative Court’s address for several months.
It effectively stalled the case against him.
The High Anti-Corruption Court has tried to consider bail for Vovk several times, but he never showed up for the hearings.
The NABU posted on Dec. 24 a video in which a detective of the bureau is trying to hand a summons to Vovk as he is leaving a Christmas party, while the judge is running from the detective and throws the summons away.
The NABU has also put Vovk on a wanted list. But without an arrest warrant, it changes nothing for Vovk.
An actual arrest warrant for Vovk would have to be authorized by Prosecutor General Venediktova, who has so far refused to do it, according to the NABU. In September, Venediktova also fired her deputy Andriy Lyubovych, who had authorized the charges for Vovk.
Two sources at the NABU and the Prosecutor General’s Office told the Kyiv Post that Lyubovich had been facing pressure from Venediktova for authorizing the charges. Prosecutors in the Vovk case were threatened with dismissal if they prosecuted Vovk and other judges of his court, one of the sources said.
Vovk’s Kyiv District Administrative Court is one of the most notorious courts in the country. It rules on administrative matters, such as legislation and actions of state agencies. It has been known anecdotally for high-level corruption — the notion backed by recordings of conversations made inside the court and released by the NABU in 2019 and 2020.
Sprawling sabotage
Even if Venediktova authorized the arrest of Vovk, the warrant would also need the approval of the discredited High Council of Justice, the judiciary’s highest governing body. The council is unlikely to authorize Vovk’s arrest.
In September, the High Council of Justice unanimously refused to suspend Vovk and other judges implicated in his case.
The council’s members are also implicated in the Vovk case. In wiretapped conversations released by the NABU, Vovk mentioned the involvement of Andrii Ovsiienko, head of the High Council of Justice, and council members Oleh Prudyvus, Pavlo Grechkivsky, Viktor Hryshchuk and Mykola Khudyk in his alleged bargains with the council. They did not respond to requests for comment.
Another obstacle to the prosecution of Pavlo Vovk is Serhiy Vovk, a controversial judge at Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court who is not a relative of his. Serhiy Vovk ruled to take the Pavlo Vovk case away from the NABU in August and to cancel the charges against him in October.
The NABU believes these rulings to be unlawful, and they have not come into effect.
This is not the first case against Pavlo Vovk. In August 2019, the Prosecutor General’s Office charged Vovk and other judges of his court with obstruction of justice.
However, in November 2019, Kyiv’s Shevchenkivsky Court rejected a motion to extend the obstruction of justice investigation and ordered prosecutors to either close the case or send it to trial within five days. The prosecutors did not send it to trial, and the case was effectively buried.
