“We have faced the first tampering in the selection of judges to the High Anti-Corruption Court in Ukraine. It is important that international experts do not allow themselves to be deceived – to this end, we possess the necessary knowledge.”
— Iegor Soboliev.
Political landscape
The chances of President Petro Poroshenko to win the next elections are further decreasing. According to a recent sociological survey, he is ranked third among the candidates, with only 7 percent of support, and shares this position with Anatoliy Grytsenko.
Poroshenko’s slogan ‘Army. Language. Faith’ in fact is being refuted by his actions, thus causing juicy scandals. After the scandal broke with Serhiy Semochko, a top presidentially appointed security official with millions of dollars in unexplained family real estate, the president failed to take political responsibility for an appointment has done much harm to the defense capacities of the country. Subsequently, investigative journalists enraged by the lack of response on the part of the president to the revelations in Semochko’s case held a rare event near the Presidential Administration, gathering all the major investigative journalists’ projects, civic activists and the public for a joint rally.
Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister and leader of the 20-member Batkivshchyna Party faction in parliament, is currently on the top of the list of presidential candidates, with the support of 13.4 percent. She launched a powerful mass-agitation campaign and is winning the “war of billboards” against Poroshenko. She has also rejoiced at finding herself, by contrast to Poroshenko, in the personal sanctions list compiled by the Russian Federation. Although I am also in this list, I believe that it was devised to confuse the public and cover-up Russian agents in Ukraine among real patriots. For instance, it also includes such former members of the Party of Regions as Mykola Zlochevsky (who was the minister of ecology and natural resources in ex-President Viktor Yanukovych times and fled Ukraine in 2014), Dmytro Kolesnikov (a member of parliament from the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc Party) or Yevhen Heller (a member of parliament from the pro-Russian Revival Party).
The people are seeking an alternative to Poroshenko and Tymoshenko, which have discredited themselves, thus comedian Volodymyr Zelensky is gaining popularity as a presidential candidate, currently ranked the second with 7.6 percent of popular support. But he, as a candidate, makes people confuse the role of the president in a TV series with a real political figure who can effectively act as the president. This is cheering to the owner of the TV channel, where Zelensky works, oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who is living outside Ukraine.
It is extremely important that Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi and Grytsenko, the former defense minister, unite and this coalition should be supported by Svyatoslav Vakarchuk and other non-corrupt politicians and civic activists. Therefore, I keep on urging my colleagues not to run for president, but to unite and present a single democratic anti-corruption candidate instead, and giving a personal example I publicly announced that I am not running.
On Anti-Corruption Court
The selection of judges to the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine is under way. The High Qualification Commission of Judges reviewed all the documents submitted and disqualified 57 candidates to the first instance and 12 candidates to the appeals chamber. Thus there shall be 183 and 88 competitors accordingly. The main reasons for disqualification were lack of proved experience for lawyers (the procedure for them was especially severe – they were required not just to confirm their period of service, but to prove the participation in hearings of corruption cases), and previous record of work at law enforcement bodies (candidates should not have worked in law enforcement for 10 last years). One candidate – whistleblower judge Larysa Holnyk was disqualified from the competition for having been reprimanded in May of this year. This has a legal basis since the law stipulates that “a judge with reprimand cannot be promoted to another position for 1 year”. However, at the same time, the HQCJ by its decision of October 8 admitted to the same competition, another judge with a reprimand – Maia Butenko, who during the EuroMaidan Revolution had been sentencing protesters. Thus we already see double standards in the application of the law to different candidates.
The commission has announced that the written examination process would be held on Nov. 12 (testing on the knowledge of legislation) and on Nov. 14 (practical assignment). The commision made some conclusions from the previous competitions and took notice of some points of criticism by the expert community (of which I reported the previous month). For instance, it set the threshold for proceeding to the next stage of selection in advance – 54 points for testing and 72 points for practical assignments. It shall not be changed through the process to suit specific candidates. But we need to help the commission to solve the other issues in the selection process and make its procedures more transparent and credible.
The whole selection process is expected to end by February or March 2019. The most possible delay in this process is related to the Public Council of International Experts. On Sept. 14, the commission received the list of 12 candidates to the council and on Oct. 18-19 held Skype meetings with 11 candidates (one has already dropped out) but has not yet nominated six out of them. It is extremely important that the commission provide full dossiers of candidates for judges and all the other related materials to the public council, and that these documents are translated as quickly as possible since none of the public council future members is proficient in Ukrainian. There is also a pressing need for the establishment of the secretariat supporting the work of the public council to ensure its effective work and active involvement in the selection process. The council should also closely cooperate with Ukrainian nongovernmental organizations in this field (such as Public Integrity Council, Anti-Corruption Action Centre, Reanimation Package of Reforms, Transparency International Ukraine, Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law, Campaign “CHESNO. Filter the Judiciary!” and others), which have already compiled a huge bunch of information on corruption in the judiciary and made databases of judges’ dossiers, that can be accessed at the following links (all of them are in Ukrainian):
https://prosud.info/#/search/
https://grd.gov.ua/judges
On NABU and SAPO
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office have completed the investigation initiated in May 2016 into embezzlement of $20 mln. at ‘Oschadbank’ (State Savings Bank of Ukraine). The case has been submitted to the court and the court ruled to use pre-trial detention for 10 suspects, with the alternative of release on bail. Among the suspects, there were 2 incumbent and 1 former top-managers of the bank, and the rest were the beneficiaries of a private company which had received the embezzled funds. Two MPs from Popular Front Party, Tetiana Chornovol and Olena Masorina were suggesting to go bail for the suspects, but the court denied this.
The scheme was effective in 2013-2015 when ‘Oshchadbank’ officials together with the leadership of private company ‘Kreativ’ forged documents to provide loans for purchasing sunflower seeds to the mentioned company, but subsequently these funds were siphoned to companies registered in Belize and Switzerland. Although this information is not confirmed by the NABU, journalists report that the person who devised this scheme is MP Stanislav Berezkin and his Maksym Berezkin is one of the detained suspects in this case.
In October, Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko made submissions to the Verkhovna Rada on stripping the immunity of several Opposition Bloc MPs upon cases by the NABU and SAPO. Namely, these were: on October 4, Serhiy Dunaiev, on charges of failing to declare 10 companies with assets for the amount of 168 mln. Hr (almost $6 mln.); on October 16, Oleksandr Vilkul, charged with abuse of office when he was the governor of Dnipropetrovsk regional state administration and misappropriations of land plots, which inflicted losses for the state budget of 15 million Hr ($532 thous.), and Dmytro Kolesnikov, charged with abuse of office when he chaired the State Property Agency of Ukraine. Actually, all these cases were extremely weakly substantiated by the Prosecutor General and even the coalition parties didn’t fully support them. This resulted in the failure of every submission with only 125, 137 and 61 votes ‘for’, accordingly. Additionally, as I have previously reported, Mr.Lutsenko blocks the further charges of illicit enrichment and failure to declare to Radical Party MPs Oleh Lyashko and Ihor Mosiychuk.
Investigative journalists’ reports on top corruption
The previous month I reported of the investigation by ‘Bihus.Info’ team on Serhiy Semochko, recently appointed First Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, who owned real estate worth for at least $8 mln. and whose close relatives, including the wife and children, were Russian citizens. The first Ukrainian state body to react was the NABU, which on October 3 launched an investigation on the charges of illicit enrichment. Much later, on October 16, the Security Service of Ukraine announced that it would investigate the alleged state treason of the official and would engage journalist Denys Bihus and his team in the investigative proceedings.
For October 17 I convened a special hearing on Mr.Semochko’s case at the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Corruption Prevention and Counteraction, to which the Chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Service and the Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine were summoned; the latter failed to come and sent his Deputy. Their answers to MPs questions were stunning – his dossier and declaration of assets were confidential; there had not been a background check before the appointment since he transferred from one security agency to another and did not come from the outside; he is not suspended and possesses the highest degree of security clearance even while the investigation into state treason is pending. For all this time there has not been any reaction to this case neither by the President of Ukraine nor by National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, which is chaired by the President, although me, as well as journalists and activists, urged them many times to respond to the scandal.
Recently, there was another dubious, even notorious, nomination of a high official by the President of Ukraine. President Poroshenko by his Decree of October 30 appointed Oleksandr Tereshchuk as the Chairman of the Kyiv Regional State Administration (the Governor of Kyiv Region). This person at the times of ousted President Yanukovych in 2012-2014 headed the police in Volyn Region and he personally dispatched police special unit ‘Berkut’ of this region to counter the protesters at the Maidan. Under the Law on Government Cleansing (Lustration), he should have been dismissed in 2014, but he was indulged by President Poroshenko in July 2015 as a General of the Nation Guard of Ukraine serving in the Anti-Terrorist Operation in the East of Ukraine. The provisions of the Law allows the President to do so if the defense capabilities of the state depend on this, but the trick is that Mr.Tereshchuk served in the National Guard for only one month.
Thus neither the loyalty of Mr.Tereshchuk to former President Yanukovych, nor sending the police troops to the Maidan, nor the fact that he had built a mansion on misappropriated land which is now arrested, prevented President Poroshenko from appointing such ‘valuable worker’ to govern the metropolitan region.
On political repressions against activists
Last month I reported of a wave of attacks on civic activists, and one of them, Serhiy Sternenko, who had already faced three assassination attempts this year, carried out his own investigation of the last attack based on open data and named the suspected contractor. As Mr.Sternenko further reports, the police has still not even interrogated this person, although they have known for 5 months of the mentioned person’s involvement in the crime.
On October 23, Liberation Movement activist and a former volunteer soldier of ‘Donbas’ battalion, Maksym Ovsiankin, aged 58, was detained at home and taken to a police department. As I found out when came to the police department, our activist was charged with clashing police at our protest camp in February, when we were demanding the Anti-Corruption Court, electoral reform and abolition of MPs’ immunity. Back then, when the police special units were unlawfully storming our protest camp for the umpteenth time, Maksym cast stones at police officers and this was recorded. In February, he was detained and released after giving explanations. And now, after more than a half a year, he again faced a compulsory reduction. None of our activists flee from justice and Maksym Ovsiankin admits his liability.
Meanwhile the cases of police brutality against protesters, illegal searches and detentions are not investigated. Law is applied only to protesters and not to Interior Minister Avakov’s subordinates. During our 137-days long protest action the police at least 5 times assaulted our protest camp. The criminal cases against four our activists, which were detained, forcibly brought to Mariupol and prosecuted on false grounds, are now falling apart at courts. The crackdown on our protest on 3 March also took place with gross violations – 2000 police special unit officers, being authorized only to hold a search at the protest camp, totally demolished it, detaining 104 protesters and breaking heads of 30 protesters. None of the law enforcement agencies has investigated any of such abuses. With the help of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, we registered with the European Court of Human Rights a lawsuit to ensure justice for our activists who suffered from the actions of corrupt law enforcement agencies.
