President Petro Poroshenko has signed the credentials of 113 new Supreme Court judges, Poroshenko’s Deputy Chief of Staff Oleksiy Filatov told journalists on Nov. 11.
“We have laid the foundation of an independent judiciary – first of all, the Supreme Court,” Poroshenko said during an oath-taking ceremony for new Supreme Court judges.
Of the new Supreme Court judges, 25 were vetoed by the Public Integrity Council, a civil society watchdog. The group accused these judges of having obtained ill-gotten wealth, participated in political cases, made unlawful rulings, or noted that they were under investigation in graft cases.
However, the vetoes were overridden by the High Qualification Commission and ignored by the High Council of Justice.
Apart from these 25, the Public Integrity Council also submitted negative information on about 60 other new Supreme Court judges.
From September to November, the High Council of Justice nominated 114 Supreme Court judges. Poroshenko has only a symbolic right to sign Supreme Court judges’ credentials and cannot refuse to do so under the law, but he nonetheless declined to appoint one of the 114 judges, Serhiy Slynko.
Slynko participated in the politically motivated prosecutions of Yuriy Lutsenko, now prosecutor general, and the Pavlychenko family under ex-President Viktor Yanukovych. Both cases have been recognized as political by Ukrainian and European authorities.
However, another judge who participated in the political persecution of Lutsenko and the Pavlychenkos, Vyacheslav Nastavny, was appointed to the Supreme Court by Poroshenko. Slynko and Nastavny deny that the case was politically motivated.
Meanwhile, the newly-appointed Supreme Court judge Stanislav Kravchenko and Slynko released senior police officer Olexiy Pukach from custody, which allowed him to flee in 2003, with Pukach’s lawyer saying that this was done on the orders of then President Leonid Kuchma. Pukach was later caught and convicted in 2013 of murdering journalist Georgy Gongadze.
Another new Supreme Court judge appointed by Poroshenko is High Commercial Court Chairman Bohdan Lvov.
Lvov is under investigation in a graft case against High Council of Justice member Pavlo Grechkivsky. According to the investigators, Grechkivsky promised to help in a legal dispute with Lvov’s assistance for $500,000.
Lvov is also under investigation in the case in which ex-High Commercial Court Chairman Viktor Tatkov and his deputy Artur Yemelyanov have been charged with unlawfully interfering in the automatic distribution of cases. Tatkov and Yemelyanov are accused of having run one of the largest corruption and corporate raiding schemes under Yanukovych.
The High Commercial Court’s judges, including Lvov, voted to effectively get rid of the automatic distribution of court cases by assigning just one judge to each judicial specialization, which would allow Tatkov and Yemelyanov to handpick judges for cases that they wanted to profit from, according to the Public Integrity Council.
Vitaly Tytych, a member of the Public Integrity Council, believes that this makes Lvov and other High Commercial Court judges accomplices in the Tatkov-Yemelyanov case. Lvov denies accusations of wrongdoing.
The new Supreme Court’s justices have also been hit with allegations of being subject to political influence.
New Supreme Court judge Oleksandra Yanovska has been accused of ties to the Presidential Administration, which she denies. In July the pro-government majority in the Verkhovna Rada unsuccessfully tried to install Yanovska as an auditor of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, in what critics believe to be an effort by Poroshenko to control the bureau.
Newly-appointed Supreme Court judge Lvov used to work with High Council of Justice Chairman Benedysyuk, a presidential ally, at the High Commercial Court and at military courts. Benedesyuk has requested to be exempted from voting for Lvov due to a conflict of interest.
In August, Lvov was filmed by Radio Liberty at the birthday party of Valery Heletei, who heads the presidential security guard detachment.
Borys Hulko, chairman of the High Specialized Court for Civil and Criminal Cases who was also appointed to the Supreme Court, was filmed walking out of the Presidential Administration by Radio Liberty in January, saying that he had discussed procedural codes. Hulko was also filmed by Radio Liberty at the birthday party of Heletei, who heads the presidential security guard detachment, in August.
Hulko’s wife Tetyana Kryzhanivska works at BIM law firm, which is co-owned by the Ukrainian Lawyers’ Association, which was founded by pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk. BIM, the Ukrainian Lawyers’ Association and Medvedchuk’s pro-Russian Ukrainian Choice party are registered at the same address. Hulko denies having any ties to Medvedchuk.
Mykhailo Smokovych, acting head of the High Administrative Court, was also appointed to the Supreme Court. He was vetoed by the Public Integrity Council and is known as a judge who closely cooperates with the Presidential Administration, Public Integrity Council member Roman Kuybida told the Kyiv Post.
New Supreme Court judge Yevhen Synelnykov is an assistant to Vladyslav Holub, a lawmaker from the Poroshenko Bloc.
Lawyers Ivan Myshchenko, Vyacheslav Peskov and Anna Vronskaya were also appointed to the Supreme Court. They used to work at the Vasyl Kysyl and Partners law firm, where Poroshenko’s Deputy Chief of Staff Filatov was one of the partners. Filatov denied having links to them, and Vronskaya denied having ties to Filatov, saying they worked at the firm at different times.
New Supreme Court judge Ihor Tkach used to work at Proksen, a firm co-founded and headed by Serhiy Kozyakov, head of the High Qualification Commission. Kostyantyn Krasovsky, head of the Presidential Administration’s legal department, also used to work with Tkach and Kozyakov at Proksen. Tkach’s wife used to be an aide to Serhiy Kivalov, a controversial Yanukovych ally.
Roman Brehei, a judge and Supreme Court candidate, has accused the High Qualification Commission of violating the law by allowing 299 candidates with insufficient scores to compete and failing to set a minimum score for psychological testing — moves that appear to promote judges favored by the authorities. The commission denies accusations of wrongdoing.
New Supreme Court judges Valentyna Yurchenko, Alla Lesko, Larysa Moroz, Oleksandr Zolotnikov and Mykhailo Smokovych have passed rulings or made decisions in favor of judges accused of unlawfully trying EuroMaidan activists.
Meanwhile, the National Police on Nov. 9 summoned High Council of Justice members Pavlo Grechkivsky and Yaroslav Romanyuk for interrogation due to a possible conflict of interest during the appointment of Supreme Court judges.
The High Council of Justice has been criticized for dismissing 48 out of its members’ 52 recusals from voting for specific Supreme Court candidates due to a conflict of interest and appointed two of its own members, Alla Lesko and Alla Oliynyk, as Supreme Court judges, which was also seen as a conflict of interest.
The Public Integrity Council said the authorities had completely ignored negative information on the Supreme Court candidates that it provided.
The High Qualification Commission initially refused to publish its recommendations on appointing Supreme Court judges. The commission divulged them only recently but they contain no explanations on why candidates were nominated and why the Public Integrity Council’s vetoes on candidates were overridden, Roman Kuybida, a member of the Public Integrity Council, told the Kyiv Post.
The commission denied the accusations.
Civic activists argue that the long-awaited renewal of the Supreme Court did not take place: almost half of the new Supreme Court judges are incumbent judges of the Supreme Court and higher specialized courts, which are being merged into the new Supreme Court. Moreover, about 70 percent of the appointees had been judges within Ukraine’s corrupt and politicized judiciary before.
Poroshenko also alarmed critics by saying on Nov. 11 that he would submit legislation to re-introduce military courts, or court martials.
In March he criticized a civilian court’s 7-year sentence for Major General Viktor Nazarov on negligence charges for an Il-76 plane crash that led to the deaths of 49 Ukrainian troops in 2014 – the first successful conviction of a top military official in Ukraine. Poroshenko said then only military courts should handle such cases.
Military courts were abolished in Ukraine in 2010. They were deemed by many lawyers to be examples of summary justice and to be fully subordinated to the political and military leadership.
Below is a complete list of the Supreme Court judges appointed by Poroshenko:
The Cassation Chamber for Economic Cases
Those appointed: Yehor Krasnov, Serhiy Zhukov, Volodymyr Pohrebniak, Oleksandr Mamaluy, Hanna Vronska, Larysa Rohach, Liliya Katerynchuk, Vyacheslav Peskov, Yuriy Chumak, Valentyna Danyshevska, Ivan Mishchenko, Iryna Bulhakova, Ihor Tkach, Hryhoriy Machulsky, Volodymyr Selyvanenko, Ihor Kushnir, Nina Tkachnko, Bohdan Lvov, Oleksandr Baranets, Valentyna Drobotova, Valeriy Sukhoviy, Volodymyr Studenets, Liudmyla Stratiyenko, Olena Kibenko, Volodymyr Bilous, Svitlana Bakulina, Inna Berdnyk, Kostiantyn Pylkov, Vitaliy Urkevych.
The Cassation Chamber for Criminal Cases
Those appointed: Nataliya Antoniuk, Serhiy Storozhenko, Svitlana Yakovleva, Vasyl Ohoretsky, Leonid Loboyko, Viktor Ostapuk, Nataliya Bilyk, Mykola Mazur, Alla Makarovets, Nataliya Marchuk, Oleksandr Marchuk, Volodymyr Korol, Stanislav Holubytsky, Valentyna Schepotkina, Volodymyr Brytanchuk, Oleksandr Yemets, Mykola Lahniuk, Stanislav Kravchenko, Vyacheslav Nastavny, Nadiya Stefaniv, Tetiana Shevchenko, Iryna Hryhoryeva, Vyacheslav Marynych, Oleh Mohylny, Tetiana Matyyek, Arkadiy Bushchenko, Lev Kyshakevych, Oleksandra Yanovska.
The Cassation Chamber for Civil Cases
Those appointed: Viktor Strylchuk, Dmytro Hudyma, Serhiy Martev, Viktor Prorok, Svitlana Shtelyk, Alla Lesko, Hryhoriy Usyk, Borys Hulko, Nataliya Antonenko, Yuliya Cherniak, Alla Oliynyk, Viktor Kuznetsov, Svitlana Karpenko, Olena Bilokon, Nataliya Liashchenko, Serhiy Hopta, Oleh Tkachuk, Valentyna Zhuravel, Yevhen Senelnykov, Valentyna Vysotska, Iryna Falovska, Valentyna Kurylo, Vasyl Krat, Dmytro Luspenyk, Maryna Chervynska, Olena Sytnyk, Olga Stupak, Vadym Korotun.
The Cassation Chamber for Administrative Cases
Those appointed: Oleksandr Zolotnykov, Mykola Himon, Tetiana Antsupova, Hanna Buchyk, Nadiya Danylevych, Mykhailo Smokovych, Oleksandr Prokopenko, Rayisa Khanova, Iryna Vasylyeva, Mykhailo Hrytsiv, Vsevolod Kniazev, Liudmyla Byvsheva, Svitlana Pasechnyk, Valentyna Yurchenko, Tetiana Shypulina, Nataliya Kovalenko, Ihor Olender, Iryna Honchrova, Oleh Bilous, Vyacheslav Khokhuliak, Vasyl Sharapa, Larysa Moroz, Yan Bernaziuk, Oleksandr Starodub, Iryna Saprykina, Volodymyr Bevzenko, Iryna Zheltobriukh, Volodymyr Kravchuk.
