The Prosecutor General’s Office and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) have drafted charges for top judges of the Kyiv Administrative District Court, the agencies said at a joint news conference on July 26.
The controversial court is known for questionable rulings that have fired or reinstated officials on bizarre and seemingly politically motivated grounds.
The judges are accused of unlawfully interfering in the work of the High Qualification Commission of Judges, a top judicial body, issuing unlawful rulings and illegally interfering in the work of courts.
“The unlawful actions of the Prosecutor General’s Office and the NABU are evidence of attempts to pressure the judges and discredit them,” the court said in a statement.
Specifically, notices of suspicion will be filed for Kyiv Administrative District Court Chairman Pavlo Vovk and two judges of the court, Yevhen Ablov and Igor Pogribinchenko, a source in the Prosecutor General’s Office told the Kyiv Post.
The notices of suspicion have yet to be authorized by Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko or one of his deputies.
On July 26, NABU and the Prosecutor General’s Office released audio recordings allegedly implicating top judges of the court in unlawful activities. Allegedly, the voices of Kyiv Administrative Court judges Vovk, Ablov, Pogribinchenko, Bogdan Sanin and Ruslan Arsiriy, as well as those of High Qualification Commission members Serhiy Ostapets and Mykola Syrosh, were recorded from February through May.
Bizarre lawsuits
The investigators allege that Vovk and other judges of the court organized the filing of lawsuits to suspend the authority of High Qualification Commission members Serhiy Kozyakov, Stanyslav Shchotka and Tetiana Veselska and appoint Ostapets and Syrosh instead. Ostapets was appointed in May by State Judicial Administration Head Zenovy Kholodnyuk.
In the released audio recordings, they appear to discuss organizing fake competitions for the High Qualification Commission jobs.
In May, the Kyiv District Administrative Court suspended Kozyakov and Shchotka and established that their authority had expired in 2018. The court ordered the High Qualification Commission to include Ostapets as one of its members to replace Shchotka.
Kozyakov and Shchotka reject the court’s legal reasoning. They argue that they had been appointed for six-year terms in 2014 and that their authority is set to expire in 2020.
However, their opponents say that the authority of Kozyakov and Shchotka had expired last fall because a 2015 law on ensuring the right to a fair trial cuts the terms of commission members to four years.
In one of the conversations, Kyiv Administrative Court Judge Volodymyr Keleberda told Vovk that “damn, Shchotka is a Jew.” Vovk replied that Shchotka is “an a***hole.”
Ombudsman’s moves
Meanwhile, Human Rights Ombudsman Lyudmila Denisova on April 4 appointed Syrosh to replace High Qualification Commission member Tetiana Veselska. Denisova believes that Veselska’s powers expired last fall, while Veselska argues that her authority will expire in 2020.
On April 15, the Kyiv Administrative District Court rejected Veselska’s motion to suspend Syrosh’s authority, allowing him to join the High Qualification Commission.
According to the recordings, Vovk proposed that Denisova appoint Syrosh in exchange for his court canceling rulings against her by the National Agency for Preventing Corruption. Denisova’s office did not respond to a request for comment from the Kyiv Post.
In the recordings, Vovk also discussed the suspension of High Qualification Commission member Andriy Kozlov’s authority. Denisova fired Kozlov on June 27, claiming that he did not have enough professional experience to be a commission member.
Ukraine’s major civil society watchdogs released a joint statement on July 2, saying that Kozlov’s firing was unlawful. They also said that Kozlov had been sacked for criticizing a qualification assessment that allowed corrupt judges to stay in office.
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 April, the bureau sided with Vovk’s court by opening a criminal case into alleged usurpation of power by Kozyakov and Shchotka, which it claimed they had committed by unlawfully extending their authority. The High Qualification Commission denies the accusations of wrongdoing.
According to the recordings, Vovk and Ablov also discussed interfering in a State Investigation Bureau commission’s decision not to hire Ablov as a State Investigation Bureau official. Specifically, they discuss influencing the Kyiv Administrative District Court judge who was considering canceling the decision and threatening the judge with a criminal case if he does not agree.
“Tell him that I reached an agreement with the State Investigation Bureau’s leadership,” Vovk told Ablov. “I’m friends with two deputy chiefs of the bureau. The (State Investigation Bureau) commission is controlled by people of (Interior Minister Arsen) Avakov. I reached an agreement with Avakov. So tell him to issue a ruling, and it won’t be appealed.”
Interior Ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko declined to comment.
Other wrongdoings
The audio recordings also document efforts by Vovk and other judges of the court to avoid the High Qualification Commission’s qualification assessment. Specifically, they say they will avoid the vetting process by claiming to be sick.
On May 10, the High Qualification Commission said that 34 judges of the Kyiv Administrative District Court had not showed up for qualification assessment at the commission, claiming that they were sick.
According to the recordings, Vovk also unlawfully organized the issuing of a ruling by Odesa’s Suvorovsky District Court to ban the qualification assessment of judges by the High Qualification Commission.
Vovk also said in the recordings that he had discussed keeping Kholodnyuk, head of the State Judicial Administration, in his job with Oleksandr Hranovsky, an ex-lawmaker who was accused of influencing law enforcement under President Petro Poroshenko. In the recording, Vovk said that Hranovsky had talked to Poroshenko, who said that Kholodnyuk must remain on his job.
Poroshenko also told Igor Benedysyuk, then head of the High Council of Justice and now a Supreme Court judge, not to have Kholodnyuk replaced, Vovk said in the recordings. Benedysyuk did not respond to a request for comment.
Hranovsky had previously denied influencing law enforcement. He did not respond to a request for comment. Poroshenko has also denied interfering in law enforcement, and his spokesman Svyatoslav Tsegolko did not respond to a request for comment.
Kholodnyuk must be fired under the 2014 lustration law, which bars officials who served ex-President Viktor Yanukovych from holding office. Despite this, he has managed to keep his job. He argues that it does not apply to him.
Vovk also often mentions the role of Serhiy Kivalov, an ex-lawmaker and former Yanukovych ally, in influencing the judiciary. Antonina Slavytska, an aide to Kivalov, discussed High Qualification Commission competition procedures with Ostapets in the recordings.
According to the recordings, Vovk also spoke to Kivalov about the Suvovovsky District Court ruling.
Kivalov is accused of being a “gray cardinal” behind the courts in Odesa and other regions, which he denies. He was the chairman of the High Council of Justice from 2001 to 2004.
According to the recordings, Vovk also allegedly discusses taking bribes for court rulings and the acquisition of expensive jewelry and old coins.
Controversial court
The Kyiv Administrative District Court’s leadership has also unlawfully interfered in decisions by the court’s judges on Central Election Commission rulings, Cabinet decisions on utility prices, the selection of State Investigation Bureau officials, the Justice Ministry, the cancellation of a freeze on Yanukovych’s assets and the Kyiv Patriarchate, the Prosecutor General’s Office and NABU said.
The agencies also said the court had influenced the Constitutional Court’s rulings on lustration, the shocking cancellation of the illicit enrichment law in February and the High Council of Justice.
Both the Kyiv Administrative District Court and the High Qualification Commission are controversial.
The court has issued some highly questionable rulings — such as the suspension of acting Health Minister Ulana Suprun and the reinstatement of ex-State Fiscal Service Chief Roman Nasirov, who was accused of corruption.
According to the Public Integrity Council, some of the judges of the Kyiv District Administrative Court do not meet integrity standards, but the High Qualification Commission of Judges has failed to dismiss or punish them.
Meanwhile, the Public Integrity Council has lambasted the High Qualification Commission for appointing tainted judges and for its arbitrary methodology, which allowed the commission to appoint judges without providing any justifications. The commission has denied accusations of wrongdoing.
