The event will be held in Poltava, not Kyiv, the country's leading law schools have not received an official invitation.
On Friday, August 19, representatives legal institutions of higher education and scientific institutions will gather at the congress to elect at least one member of the Supreme Council of Justice according to their quota. The experts of the DEJURE Foundation Mykhailo Zhernakov and Samira Abbasova talk about the risks of selection in the article “Judicial reform. What are the risks involved in the process of forming the VRP?
It may happen that at the congress two members of the Council will be elected at once – on August 7, the deadline for scientists to decide whether to dismiss a member VRP of Viktor Hryschuk, whom the Ethics Council recognized as unscrupulous. Therefore, his authority is terminated automatically.
At the time of the congress, there will be two vacant places under the quota of scientists. And both can be filled.
“The law requires that there be twice as many recommended candidates on the list as there are vacancies. This is exactly the case, because the Ethics Council recommended four scientists for the quota of the congress. These are Mykola Havronyuk, Oleksiy Gorokh, Serhiy Melenkoand Dmytro Lukyanov. There are questions about the last three, two of them are serious,” the authors emphasize.
First, candidate Dmytro Lukyanov was a member of the Competition Commission, which selected judges for the Constitutional Court. And his colleague, former scientific director and ex-candidate to the KSU Olexandr Petryshyn heads the organizing committee of the August congress.
In 2004, Petryshyn headed the department of legal theory of the National Law Academy named after Yaroslav the Wise. It was with its conclusion, signed by him, that the department “sanctified” the right of Leonid Kuchma to run for a third term.
Petryshyn also heads the National Academy of Legal Sciences, to which many scientific institutions are subordinate, seven delegates from the academy will go to the congress, that is, they will have a significant share of votes.
At one time, Lukyanov supported Petryshyn for the post of judge of the Constitutional Court. Petryshyn will probably return Lukyanov's favor and support him at the congress of scientists. Therefore, such a “competitive casting” is an unambiguous conflict of interests.
To create the illusion of eliminating the conflict of interests, Petryshyn refused to be the chairman of the congress, instead he became the secretary of the organizing committee Dmytro Luchenko.
“However, according to our information, Petryshyn continues to make all decisions related to the holding of the congress, and Luchenko agrees with him even on the smallest issues,” experts emphasize.
Secondly, Dmytro Lukyanov is connected with other unscrupulous judges. For example, he supported the appointment of Olexander Sybigy as a judge of the Constitutional Court, who owns a large amount of elite property, the origin of which he cannot explain with official income (two apartments and a house with an area of more than 700 square meters in Kyiv, seven plots of land, Tesla, Porsche, Toyota Camry, Breitling, Rolex and Breguet watches).
In 2017, the High Qualification Commission of Judges found Sybig unscrupulous, and the Supreme Court later upheld this decision. That did not prevent Lukyanov from supporting his candidacy.
Another candidate, Serhiy Melenko, was a representative in 93 court cases in 2020-2021 alone.But for 2020, he declared only 50,000 hryvnias of income, which is negligible for such a volume of work as a lawyer, taking into account the price of services on the market. declaration, 100 thousand hryvnias, which does not correspond to market prices at all. His wife is a member of the board of the Chernivtsi regional organization of the “Nashi” party of Yugen Murayev.
The third candidate, Oleksiy Horokh, also has obvious problems with declaration.In 2020, the candidate declared only UAH 28,000 in income, although he is a practicing lawyer and often lectures at professional development courses. The annual income of such a qualified and well-known lawyer cannot be 28,000 hryvnias.
At the same time, Gorokh declared a Suzuki DL650 V-Strom motorcycle at a price of 45,000 hryvnias, although its market value is three times higher. The candidate's declaration contains other inconsistencies.
“Obviously, during the Ethics Board review, he was able to somehow explain the reasons for such discrepancies, because he got the green light. But due to the closed nature of the interviews, public organizations could not be sure of the thoroughness of these explanations,” the authors emphasize.
However, Mykola Havronyuk is among the candidates, whose integrity the public has no doubts about. Doctor of Law, lecturer at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and member of the board of the Center for Political and Legal Reforms, Havronyuk is the author of tasks for competitions for the positions of judges of the Higher Anti-Corruption Court and heads of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office.
Experts are concerned about the venue of drive – Poltava, where it will be easier to hide dubious personnel decisions than in Kyiv. And also the lack of an official invitation for the country's leading law schools, in particular the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and Ivan Franko LNU.
This is a direct violation of Part 9 of Article 13 of the Law on the VRP, which states that “notification of the time and place of the congress… is immediately sent to educational institutions and scientific institutions that delegate their representatives to the congress.”
Individual delegates deliberately refused to participate in the congress in order not to “legitimize this farce”, the authors emphasize with reference to the information available to them.
The Supreme Council of Justice < strong>consists of 21 members, who are appointed by various subjects. Ten are elected by the Congress of Judges of Ukraine, two are appointed by the President, two more by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Congress of Lawyers of Ukraine, the All-Ukrainian Conference of Prosecutors and the Congress the trip of representatives of law universities and scientific institutions.
Read also: Selection of candidates for the Supreme Council of Justice: what difficulties arise in the process
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