Even if parliament eliminates the court of Ukraine’s most notorious judge, Pavlo Vovk, he and his fellow judges may just move to a new one, civic watchdogs DEJURE and Anti-Corruption Action Center said on April 14.
Vovk, who has been charged with graft, heads the infamous Kyiv District Administrative court. He and the court’s other judges are seen by civil society as the top exemplars of judicial corruption and impunity in Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on April 13 submitted a parliamentary bill to eliminate this court. On April 14, the text of Zelensky’s bill was published on the Verkhovna Rada’s site.
It says that the Kyiv District Administrative Court will be replaced with a yet-to-be-created Kyiv City District Administrative Court.
However, Fedir Venislavsky, Zelensky’s representative at the Constitutional Court, said on April 13 that judges of the Kyiv District Administrative Court will be able to apply for jobs at the new court. The bill does not create any procedure for choosing the new court’s judges.
Critics said this defies the entire point of the bill. Judges of Vovk’s court may be transferred to the new court without any competition or integrity checks, judicial watchdog DEJURE said.
Even if judges of Vovk’s court undergo new qualification procedures, they will be vetted “by the corrupt and unreformed High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission, which is completely controlled by the High Council of Justice”, said Mykhailo Zhernakov, head of DEJURE.
“The competition (for the new court) will be organized by people controlled by Pavlo Vovk,” Zhernakov said on Facebook.
Moreover, the bill would not limit the jurisdiction of the new Kyiv City District Administrative Court or transfer some of its powers to the Supreme Court, as required by Ukraine’s agreements with the International Monetary Fund, DEJURE said.
Judicial reform
The High Council of Judges and the High Qualification Commission are top judicial bodies that appoint, fire and punish judges. The discredited High Qualification Commission, which is supposed to carry out qualification assessment, was liquidated in 2019.
Members of the High Council of Justice face numerous accusations of corruption. They did not respond to requests for comment.
In wiretapped conversations released by the NABU, Vovk mentioned the involvement of High Council of Justice members in his alleged corrupt schemes. The council has consistently protected Vovk and refused to suspend him twice.
In February Zelensky submitted a bill that seeks to reform the High Council of Justice. In March parliament also approved a bill to create a new High Qualification Commission.
However, both bills have been lambasted by civic watchdogs for not giving foreign experts a decisive role in the reforms and violating Ukraine’s agreements with the IMF.
Vovk case
Vovk has the reputation of being corrupt and untouchable.
In audio recordings published by National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), Vovk discusses numerous corrupt deals, gives illegal orders and quips that no one should doubt the court’s “political prostitution.” One of the court’s judges was recorded as saying that he supports “any lawlessness in the judiciary.”
In July 2020 Vovk and other judges of his court were charged with organized crime, abuse of power, bribery and unlawful interference with government officials.
For months, Vovk has ignored the NABU’s summonses. When the NABU tried to use court warrants to bring Vovk to bail hearings by force, the judge always hid from the bureau.
The bureau has for months asked Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, a Zelensky loyalist, to authorize an arrest warrant for Vovk but she refused.
Responding to accusations of sabotage, Venediktova on March 17 said that she cannot take Vovk to court by force. She added that she doubted the effectiveness of the investigation and said that she did not see any “trial prospects” in the case.
Andriy Bitsyuk, a judge at the High Anti-Corruption Court, on March 17 refused to extend the corruption investigation against Vovk. According to the Criminal Procedure Code, prosecutors had to either close the investigation or send it to trial within five days.
However, the case was not sent to trial within five days and is likely to be closed.
On April 6, the NABU arrested Vovk’s brother Yury Zontov, an employee of the Foreign Intelligence Service. He was charged with receiving a $100,000 bribe as an intermediary for Vovk.
