Ukrainian lawmakers have used all manner of creative means to elude law enforcement once their parliamentary immunity expires or is revoked.
Chief among these is fleeing the country to keep their business interests free from full legal scrutiny.
But one former member of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, is alleged to have found a novel means to steer clear of charges: Investigators say he is dodging legal action by trying to extend his wife’s tenure as a judge at the European Court of Human Rights, or ECHR, that grants her and, by extension, him, immunity from prosecution.
And they say Georgii Logvynsky is going to great lengths to prevent the appointment of a replacement for her on the court.
In late January, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, or NABU, accused ex-lawmaker Georgii Logvynsky of forging documents submitted to the ECHR, which resulted in the Ukrainian government paying more than $2 million to a little-known company, allegedly associated with him.
According to the bureau, several high-profile state officials participated in the scheme. Five were charged with embezzlement.
But Logvynsky, accused by investigators of masterminding the scheme, cannot be charged. His get- out-of-jail-free card is his wife, Hanna Yudkovska, a Ukrainian judge sitting on the court in Strasbourg, France, that rules on human rights violations.
Yudkovska’s term ended in July 2019, but her replacement has not yet been appointed. According to ECHR procedures, Ukraine must first submit three candidates to the Council of Europe for a vote.
Mykhailo Buromensky, who leads the commission tasked with choosing a replacement for the Ukrainian judge, said Logvynsky has been putting pressure on commission members to undermine the process.
Logvynsky failed to reply to repeated requests for comment. His wife could not be reached for comment.
Who is Georgii Logvynsky?
Logvynsky, 41, is a lawyer and a businessman.
He is a high-profile member of both the Crimean Tatar and Jewish communities. He enjoys a friendship with Mustafa Dzhemilev, a member of parliament and former head of the Mejlis assembly of the Crimean Tatar people, and Rabbi Moshe Azman, one of three claimants to the title of Kyiv’s chief rabbi.
In 2014, Logvynsky was elected to parliament on the People’s Front party ticket.
That same year, Logvynsky became a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), serving as the head of the assembly’s judiciary committee and later as the assembly’s vice president.
However, since Logvynsky ceased to be a Ukrainian lawmaker after the 2019 elections, his wife has been his sole protection from a series of serious criminal charges.
The scheme: Golden Mandarin
In January, NABU alleged that Logvynsky organized a scheme to launder Hr 54 million ($7 million at the time) through an energy company called Golden Mandarin Oil. While the company is officially registered to someone else, NABU believes that Logvynsky is its de facto owner.
According to the bureau, Golden Mandarin in 2008 bought oil fuel stored in facilities belonging to Kyivenergo, a utility company co-owned by the state and oligarch Rinat Akhmetov’s DTEK energy holding. Later, Golden Mandarin requested the fuel from Kyivenergo, but the company said it had no technical capacity to pump it out of storage.
Golden Mandarin sued Kyivenergo in a Ukrainian court to get the fuel. It won, but Kyivenergo once again failed to comply. The company took the case to the ECHR, where Logvynsky’s wife has been a judge since 2010.
in 2013, Golden Mandarin Oil sold Kyivenergo’s debt to another company, which according to the investigation is also controlled by Logvynsky.
Then, according to the NABU, Logvynsky violated the law.
The investigators suggest that he colluded with Natalia Bernatska, then-deputy justice minister, and Boris Babin, the government’s commissioner on ECHR cases, to resolve the matter. In 2015, Bernatska agreed to a voluntary settlement between the state, which owned 25 percent of Kyivenergo, and Golden Mandarin Oil.
ECHR approved the settlement, and the state paid Logvynsky’s company Hr 54 million.
The investigators deemed that deal an unnecessary concession on the part of state officials, and a result of a collusion. In January, Bernatska and Babin were charged with embezzlement.
Babin filed the settlement to the ECHR. The court ruled that the state had to pay Kyivenergo’s debt.
All the alleged participants of the scheme – Bernatska, Babin, and Logvynsky – deny wrongdoing and say that the prosecution is politically motivated.
They have some defenders, among them activist Boris Zakharov of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group.
In February, Zakharov published an October letter from the ECHR that he says justifies the settlement. The letter refers to a 2001 Ukrainian law that bans energy companies in which the state owns at least a 25% stake to sell their property to pay off debt. According to Zakharov, this means that Kyivenergo couldn’t pay out the debt itself, and the state’s intrusion was justified.
“It’s either a case of (law enforcement) ignorance or it was ordered by Akhmetov,” says Zakharov. “It can potentially harm Ukraine’s relationship with the ECHR.”
Zakharov suggests that Akhmetov could benefit from the prosecution of Logvynsky. He claims that, if the settlement is overturned, the money may be returned to Akhmetov’s DTEK company which is now a sole owner of Kyivenergo. In 2017, two years after the state paid out Kyivenergo’s debt, DTEK bought out the state’s minority share of Kyivenergo.
DTEK told the Kyiv Post that they won’t be commenting on the case while it is under investigation.
Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, disagrees with Zakharov’s interpretation. He says that Kyivenergo could, in fact, pay the debt itself, since the Constitutional Court greenlighted such practice back in 2012, and there have been precedents.
“Logvynsky, Bernatska and their friends are trying to cause an international scandal, trying to present (the investigation) as punishment and harassment for Ukraine’s supposedly rightful implementation of an ECHR ruling,” Shabunin told the Kyiv Post.
The future of the Logvynsky case isn’t clear. According to Shabunin, it was former Prosecutor General Ruslan Riaboshapka who revived the case against Logvynsky, after it was stalled by Nazar Kholodnytsky, head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecution. Kholodnytsky, who oversees the NABU investigations, including the Logvynsky case, was caught on tape in 2018 promising Logvynsky to help him with his legal troubles.
“The situation is fully under my control,” Kholodnytsky was heard saying to Logvynsky on the tapes made and published by NABU. “There is no threat to you.”
Riaboshapka was fired by parliament on March 5, and replaced by Iryna Venedyktova. Kholodnytsky remains in office.
Unpaid lobbyist
Despite being under investigation, Logvynsky is safe from prosecution in 47 countries, including Ukraine, owing to his wife’s position as a European Court judge.
According to Mordechai Tzivin, an Israeli lawyer, Logvynsky hired him in 2010 to lobby for the appointment of his wife Yudkovska as an ECHR judge. According to Tzivin, Logvynsky agreed to pay him $75,000 should Yudkovska secure the nomination.
Yudkovska’s main competitor for the position was Serhii Holovaty, a judge close to then-President Viktor Yanukovych, who visited Strasbourg a day before the election to lobby for Holovaty.
Yudkovska won, but Logvynsky made no payment, the lawyer alleged.
The Kyiv Post obtained letters from Tzivin’s lawyer to Logvynsky, demanding payment for the lobbying services. In the letters, the lawyer says Tzivin persuaded ECHR delegates from Russia and Spain to vote for Yudkovska, key to helping her secure the appointment.
Tzivin told the Kyiv Post that when he asked about the money, Logvynsky threatened him on multiple occasions.
Tzivin said that he turned for assistance to Kyiv rabbis, but to no avail. Rabbi Azman issued an official letter in February supporting Logvynsky in the Golden Mandarin case.
Now Tzivin wants to sue the ex-lawmaker.
“The documents are ready, we’re planning to sue Logvynsky in Strasbourg or Paris in the coming weeks,” Tzivin said.
Golden ticket
Being a European Court judge provides substantial benefits. The ECHR is the highest judicial body of the Council of Europe and includes one judge from each member state.
According to the European Convention on Human Rights, judges are elected for nine years by a vote in PACE. They are chosen from three nominees provided by each host country. Additionally, the Council of Europe says that judges, their spouses and minor children receive the privileges and immunities granted to diplomatic envoys in accordance with international law.
However, these privileges can be revoked.
In November 2011, Romanian law enforcement searched the property of Gabriela Birsan, a judge of Romania’s Supreme Court, who was accused of corruption. The ECHR filed a complaint, saying that Romanian prosecutors violated the law. Gabriela’s husband, judge Cornelius Birsan, was Romania’s representative to the ECHR.
The Romanian prosecution filed an official petition to strip Cornelius Birsan of his immunity and the ECHR partially satisfied it by waiving Gabriela Birsan’s immunity for this one specific case. After a seven-year-long process, Gabriela Birsan was acquitted by the Supreme Court.
Additionally, judges serve until a successor is voted in and that means that, even after a judge’s nine-year term expires, he or she can remain in office. Yudkovska is well into her 10th year.
New judge selection
In June 2019, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a competition to select the next Ukrainian representative in the ECHR.
But Logvynsky urged candidates to drop out, according to one candidate, who requested anonymity so as not to harm his chances in the competition.
In late July, the competition commission chose three candidates, but they have not yet been presented to PACE for a vote.
Marina Bardyna, a lawmaker among 248-strong pro-presidential Servant of the People faction and one of Ukraine’s delegates to PACE, says Ukraine’s candidates were vetoed by the Advisory Panel of the Council of Europe.
“Two of the three candidates chosen were rejected by the panel,” says Bardina. Among them was Pavel Pushkar, who had worked for the Council of Europe for 18 years, heading various departments.
“It’s odd,” says Bardyna. “Now it’s up to the president to decide whether to still nominate the chosen candidates for a vote or declare a new competition and start the process all over again.”
While that process stalls, Logvynsky maintains his immunity from prosecution in Ukraine and 46 other countries.
