Pechersky District Court of Kyiv decided to transfer the investigation of the case of embezzlement of the National Guard property to the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI), thereby violating the discretion of the prosecutor general, the case against judges of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv city may also be transferred to the SBI, Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) Artem Sytnyk.
“The judge of Pechersky District Court of Kyiv city, Serhiy Vovk, decided to transfer the case, in which Deputy Head of the President’s Office Oleh Tatarov appears, from the NABU to the SBI. Thus, the court interferes with the discretionary powers of the prosecutor general,” Sytnyk told zn.ua, released on Tuesday.
According to him, in Pechersky court, the jurisdiction of the case against the judges of the District Administrative Court and in the case of former Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of the times of President Yanukovych Mykola Zlochevsky was contested. In the “Zlochevsky case,” as the director of NABU said, the lawyers withdrew their complaint about the change in jurisdiction, and the case of the judges could be transferred to the SBI. “The lawyer of Vovk (Head of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv Pavlo Vovk) just goes to court and demands to take the case from NABU, because we allegedly have a dispute over the case with the SBI. But there is no dispute. And even if there was, then only the prosecutor general, and not Pechersky Court, has the right to decide it,” Sytnyk said.
Answering a question whether NABU is ready to hand over the District Administrative Court of Kyiv case, the director of the bureau said: “No, of course. However, the prosecutor general has the legal right to make such a decision. I can admit that procedural decisions can be made not in favor of NABU.”
