Roman Maselko
In 2016, Petro Poroshenko announced the judicial reform. It is still ongoing in Ukraine. We are reaping fruits of this reform now in the form of reinstation of Roman Nasirov and suspension of Ulana Suprun.
The main purpose of the reform is to clean and renew Ukrainian judicial system. In order to do it the judicial reform included two main components, namely creation of the new Supreme Court from scratch and qualifying evaluation of all judges.
Judges who do not meet criteria of integrity and professionalism or who are stained by participation in political persecution should be dismissed.
About half of more than 5,600 has passed the qualifying evaluation during more than two years of the reform. According to the latest data, only about 5% of judges do not correspond to their positions. At the same time, the majority of Maydan’s judges remained in offices.
Quarter of winners of the competition to the Supreme Court received negative opinions from the Public Council of Integrity. However, this fact did not stop them from becoming judges of the new Supreme Court.
The High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) and the High Council of Justice (HCJ) approved judges to the new Supreme Court who had proved their loyalty to authorities by participation in political persecution.
For instance, judges Vyacheslav Nastavnyi and Serhiy Slynko are working now in the Supreme Court. They confirmed legality of the decision regarding the Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko during Yanukovych’s time. Earlier the same judge Slynko together with the judge Stanislav Kravchenko (also appointed to the Supreme Court) had released the murderer of Georgiy Gongadze Pukach.
Judges who could not convincingly explain origin of their funds and who had not properly submitted their funds in declarations were appointed to the Supreme Court. For instance, the judge Olga Stupak tried to explain purchase of the house worth more than 2 million UAH near Kyiv by the income of her mother-in-law who had been selling berries. She “forgot” to indicate the fact that she had used this house in her declaration. NABU is investigating this fact. It has already found lots of evidence regarding the illicit enrichment and concealment of property in the declaration.
No judge has been dismissed from Kyiv District Administrative Court (KDAC), which is currently considering the case of Ulana Suprun, in the framework of the judicial reform.
Only SIX judges of District Administrative Court have passed such evaluation during two years of the judicial reform. Three of them continue to work as judges. Two of them were recommended to be dismissed, but they weren’t. The decision regarding another judge is on hold.
For instance, the judge-speaker Bohdan Sanin is among them. He had banned Maydan by his decision. The High Qualification Commission of Judges found him not corresponding to the judge’s position in April 2018. However, Sanin is not dismissed yet due to the delay of consideration of the case by the High Council of Justice.
The judge of Kyiv District Administrative Court Viktor Danylyshyn, who also had banned Maydan and had helped acting prosecutor of the city of Kyiv O. Valendyuk to avoid the lustration, passed the interview with the Qualification Commission in April 2018. There is still no decision on his professional suitability.
The judge of Kyiv District Administrative Court Ihor Pogribnichenko successfully passed the evaluation. I have already written how the member of the HQCJ Tetyana Veselska had received the elite corporate apartment thanks to his decision. Pogribnichenko himself lives in the house near Kyiv, but he also received and privatized the corporate apartment. He should definitely be dismissed. But the HQCJ considers him honest as well as another judge of Kyiv District Administrative Court Kyryl Garnyk. AutoMaydan was investigating him.
We have already written about odious decisions of judges of District Administrative Court. Judges of Kyiv District Administrative Court reinstated Nasirov to the position of the head of the SFS, allowed Berkut to disperse members of Maydan, covered subjects of the case of Avakov’s backpacks, and recognized the NABU’s actions illegal in the case of “amber” MP Rozenblat.
It was just this court that helped the Ministry of Defense to destroy evidence regarding the case of Trade Commodity. It approved that the Rotterdam+ formula did not affect interests of electricity consumers, allowed SBU officials and prosecutors of Military prosecution not to submit their declarations, and also helped NACP to block investigations of the NABU regarding crimes of illicit enrichment.
This is not complete list of all absurd decisions of District Administrative Court.
By the way, we should be grateful to Petro Poroshenko for the fact that District Administrative Court continues the “injustice system”. Since the Presidential Administration of Petro Poroshenko took responsibility regarding the implementation of the judicial reform.
On December 26, 2017, the High Council of Justice approved the presidential decree on liquidation of District Administrative Court.
However, three days later Poroshenko signed the decree on liquidation of the number of courts, from which Kyiv District Administrative Court had strangely disappeared.
The President retained Kyiv District Administrative Court. The High Qualification Commission of Judges selectively examines judges and later retains unworthy subjects in the system.
As the result, on February 5, 2019, the judge of Kyiv District Administrative Court Serhiy Karakashyan issued the decree that prohibited Ulana Suprun “to make any actions aimed at the implementation of powers of the Minister of Health of Ukraine” and actually blocked the work of the Ministry of Health.
Frankly speaking, I have not seen more absurd and illegal decree. Everything is done violating the law. One more thing, Mosiychuk asks to ensure the lawsuit, because Ulana Suprun’s keeping the position is the violation of “his rights to implement duties of the Member of Parliament of Ukraine regarding appointment of the defendant and the right to health care as the citizen”. That’s it. No comments.
On February 11, the judge Karakashyan considered the lawsuit regarding the abolition of this ban and went to the retiring room. Almost two days passed since then. There is still no decision.
On February 15, the same judge would consider the lawsuit against Suprun. We can only guess what the solution will be.
If promises regarding results of the judicial reform were fulfilled, this court would be liquidated long time ago, and the judge Karakashyan would unlikely retain his position. Who is responsible for failing the judicial reform?