President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team have said that judicial reforms carried out under his predecessor Petro Poroshenko have failed.
They have also announced plans to re-launch judicial reform by replacing the composition of the top judicial bodies that vet, appoint and punish judges.
However, doubts remain as to whether such intentions are sincere.
On Aug. 7, Zelensky created a commission in charge of judicial reform and appointed to it numerous judges implicated in corruption scandals and the sabotage of reforms. Another controversial commission appointed by Zelensky on Aug. 5 banned Ukraine’s most famous whistleblower judge Larysa Golnyk from the next stage of the competition for a job at the High Council of Justice, the judiciary’s main governing body.
Zelensky’s press office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
There are also concerns that Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan is becoming the new gray cardinal behind the court system by appointing his proxies in key positions. Bohdan did not respond to a request for comment.
Poroshenko’s reform
Poroshenko’s record on judicial reform has been criticized by the Public Integrity Council, the judiciary’s civil society watchdog, as well as by anti-corruption watchdogs and legal experts.
Under Poroshenko, the High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission of Judges appointed 44 Supreme Court judges who the Public Integrity Council says violated integrity and professional ethics standards. The Public Integrity Council has also 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 High Qualification Commission and the High Council of Justice have denied accusations of wrongdoing.
Ambitious plans
Ruslan Riaboshapka, Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff and the top candidate for the job of prosecutor general, said on Aug. 7 that the Verkhovna Rada may pass legislation to re-launch and replace the High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission of Judges on the first day of its work. The Rada is expected to convene in late August or early September.
Riaboshapka said that a panel of foreign experts would help to select new members of the High Qualification Commission. Anti-corruption watchdogs have also pushed for including civil society representatives in the High Qualification Commission and the High Council of Justice.
“Judges don’t feel fear,” Riaboshapka told Channel 24. “They are not afraid of the state and the people. Disciplinary penalties don’t exist as an institution.”
Riaboshapka argued that Poroshenko’s judicial reforms had not led to radical, much-needed changes.
“The mafia-style family system remains in the judiciary,” he said. “The reform did not lead to judges independently running the system and obeying the law. Only people who control the judges have been replaced.”
Despite Riaboshapka’s announcements, the composition of the commission created by Zelensky to pursue legal changes, including judicial reform, disappointed many.
Riaboshapka declined to comment. His assistant, Tatyana Shaigorodska, blocked this journalist on Facebook after a request for comment.
Controversial group
Roman Maselko and Mykhailo Zhernakov — members of the Public Integrity Council — have lambasted the commission’s composition, arguing it will not be able to reform anything.
The legal reform commission includes five judges who have been vetoed by the Public Integrity Council because they do not meet integrity and professional ethics standards. These include Bohdan Lvov, Stanislav Kravchenko, Mykhailo Smokovych, Vadym Butenko and Roman Boyko. They deny any accusations of wrongdoing.
The commission also includes ex-Constitutional Court Chairman Yuriy Baulin, who is under investigation in an usurpation of power case over issuing decisions that increased ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s powers and allowed lawmakers to switch from opposition parties to Yanukovych’s Party of Regions in 2010. He has denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
Other commission members include several current and former members of the High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission — the judiciary’s governing bodies. They will be in charge of judicial reform under Zelensky despite having been accused by anti-corruption groups and legal experts of blocking judicial reform under Poroshenko and promoting tainted judges. They have denied the accusations.
Their appointment is also surprising because Zelensky’s team itself has recognized the failure of these governing bodies to reform the judiciary.
Another member of the legal reform commission, Oleksandr Paseniuk, headed the High Administrative Court in 2004 to 2011 and was a Constitutional Court judge under Yanukovych. According to the alleged black ledger of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, published in 2016, the party paid bribes worth $15 million to judges of the High Administrative Court. One of the entries says “Paseniuk, security — $55,000.” He did not respond to a request for comment.
The commission’s composition was formed by Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan and approved by Zelensky. Several of the members are linked to Bohdan.
Baulin’s son Oleksandr is a former business partner of Bohdan, while Boyko used to head legal firm Status, which is co-owned by Bohdan’s brother Igor. The legal reform commission also includes lawyer Igor Pukshin, a former business partner of Bohdan, and Judge Andriy Nyzhny, the brother of Serhiy Nyzhny, who was a top executive of Zelensky’s presidential campaign, which was co-managed by Bohdan.
High Council of Justice
Zelensky’s planned appointment of two members of the High Council of Justice will also show how sincere he is about reforming the judiciary.
In June he canceled Poroshenko’s appointment of two members of the council and scheduled a new competition for the jobs. He argued that Poroshenko’s appointments were unlawful and violated competition procedures and a court ban.
One of the disappointments was that the commission appointed by Zelensky on Aug. 5 banned Judge Larysa Golnyk from the next stage of the competition for a High Council of Justice job. In 2015, Golnyk published video footage that allegedly showed then Poltava Mayor Oleksandr Mamai pressuring her to close a case against him, and his former deputy Dmytro Trikhna unsuccessfully trying to bribe her in exchange for closing it. They deny accusations of wrongdoing, despite the material evidence.
“Golnyk was the only candidate whose only presence in the High Council of Justice would have meant its readiness for radical change,” Roman Maselko, a lawyer and also a candidate for the council, wrote on Facebook. “She has proven to have not just zero tolerance but also disgust for any manifestations of corruption.”
The reformist candidates for the council also include Judges Roman Bregei, Vitkor Fomenko and Pavlo Parkhomenko.
Three candidates for the High Council of Justice have been identified by several anti-corruption watchdogs as not meeting integrity standards. They did not respond to requests for comment.
Anzhelika Krusyan, a former prosecutor, has links to Serhiy Kivalov, a former ally of Yanukovych. She is a top executive at Kivalov’s Odesa Legal Academy, and her assets do not match her income, according to anti-corruption watchdogs.
Another candidate, Judge Oksana Blazhivska, is a daughter of Yevhen Blazhivsky, an ex-deputy of Yanukovych’s infamous Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka. She has violated asset declaration rules, according to watchdogs.
Judge Mykhailo Kobal, who is also running for the council, has issued questionable rulings, including those in favor of Yanukovych’s Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk, the watchdogs said. The High Council of Justice has found that he violated procedural norms.
Kangaroo court
As Zelensky’s team is announcing reform initiatives, a controversy over the Kyiv Administrative District Court has shown how unreformed the judiciary is.
The Prosecutor General’s Office on Aug. 2 charged top judges of the Kyiv Administrative District Court with issuing unlawful rulings and unlawfully interfering in the work of other judges. Law enforcers also released shocking audio recordings of the judges implicating themselves in various crimes and exposing what appears to be their feeling of total impunity. They deny the accusations of wrongdoing.
According to the recordings, the judges discussed the arrangement of fake lawsuits to suspend the authority of High Qualification Commission members and holding fake competitions to replace them. They also discussed taking bribes for court rulings and the buying of expensive jewelry and old coins.
The controversial court is now trying to curry favor with the new authorities, Vitaly Tytych, ex-coordinator of the Public Integrity Council, told the Kyiv Post.
The Kyiv Administrative District Court has issued several rulings in favor of billionaire oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, whom Bohdan had previously served as a lawyer. In April the court canceled the nationalization of Kolomoisky’s PrivatBank and ruled in favor of Triantal Investment Ltd, a firm co-owned by Kolomoisky.
Kolomoisky is a former business partner to Zelensky, and has been suspected of backingthe political campaign of his former partner. Both of them deny being political allies.
