Criminal proceedings will be initiated for the Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration's interference in court cases.
Alexey Filatov
Oleksiy Filatov, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration responsible for judicial reform, faces a three-year prison sentence. Kyiv's Pechersky District Court ordered the prosecutor's office to enter into the Unified Register information about Filatov's interference in the judicial system, previously disclosed by Anton Chernushenko, Head of the Kyiv Court of Appeals. Filatov faces up to three years in prison under the charge he is charged with.
Chernushenko opened Pandora's box
Despite the pessimistic assessments of many lawyers and human rights activists, Ukraine's judicial system has not yet completely rotted. The country still has courageous judges capable of making decisions that run counter to the "party line"—instructions from above on how justice should be administered. Among them is Judge Larisa Tsokol, who undoubtedly made the historic decision to initiate criminal proceedings against Oleksiy Filatov, the overseer of Ukraine's judicial reform.
From the outside, Judge Tsokol's decision appears quite routine. The prosecutor's office is being ordered to fulfill its direct responsibility—to enter criminal offense information into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations, in accordance with Article 214 of the Criminal Code. This provision doesn't even provide for refusal to enter this information, yet the prosecutor's office regularly violates this provision. Therefore, many judges are ordering prosecutors to correct this "oversight."
Judge Tsokol's case is unique. According to her decision, information about Filatov's pressure on judges, which was made public by Anton Chernushenko, head of the Kyiv Court of Appeals, must be added to the Register.
As a reminder, in July 2015, the Prosecutor General's Office charged Chernushenko with serious criminal offenses—illegally interfering with the court's automated document management system and issuing knowingly unjust rulings. Chernushenko subsequently made a video statement accusing Oleksiy Filatov of pressuring courts at various levels in a number of high-profile cases, including the Gongadze case, searches at Graf jewelry stores, the seizure of Naftogazdobycha property, the seizure of the harvest of 77 agricultural companies, and the Yarynyak case. For example, according to Chernushenko, Filatov demanded that Leonid Kuchma and his entourage not be called as witnesses in the Gongadze case. The head of the Court of Appeals claimed that Filatov acted in the personal interests of President Petro Poroshenko and that he was charged after failing to follow yet another instruction from the Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration.
The facts presented by Chernushenko could have formed the basis for more than one criminal case. Automaidan leader Oleksiy Gritsenko and the organization's lawyer, Roman Maselko, decided to go all the way and appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office, demanding that the violations cited by Chernushenko be entered into the Unified Register.
In particular, these actions fall under the sanction of Article 376 of the Criminal Code, which stipulates interference in any form with a judge's activities with the aim of obtaining an unjust decision. Such pressure exerted by an official may result in a sentence of up to three years in prison.
However, O. Volik, deputy head of the Kyiv prosecutor's office, did not find any criminal offense in Filatov's actions and found no grounds for including them in the registry. Naturally, these actions were appealed in court.
There are patriots among the judges too
Of course, hopes for the fairness of the domestic justice system in such a high-profile case were rather illusory. But Larisa Tsokol managed to surprise not only activists but also the entire legal and judicial community by issuing a non-appealable ruling adding information about Filatov's crimes to the registry.
Making such a decision despite the unprecedented pressure being exerted on the courts by the defendant himself is truly a worthy act. Few judges on the Pechersk Court would have the courage to do so. Among the legal profession, only a few unblemished names are mentioned. Besides Judge Tsokol, these include Judges Olesya Batrin, Kristina Tarasyuk, and Tatyana Ostapchuk, who have courageously withstood pressure from the Administration over the past year and a half and avoided engaging in fraudulent provocations that resulted in unjust decisions. It is precisely these people who are the only hope of civil society today. They are the ones who can open the eyes of the public, the business elite, investors, and the President to the kind of person currently leading judicial reform.
There's more than enough reason for outrage. After all, the episodes voiced by Chernushenko are only part of Filatov's extensive activities, which have regularly made the media rounds before. As is well known, Filatov is a direct protégé of the head of the Presidential Administration, Boris Lozhkin. At Vasil Kisil & Partners, he assisted Lozhkin in finalizing the sale of Ukrainian Media Holding to the notorious Serhiy Kurchenko. Immediately after Filatov's appointment to the Presidential Administration, Serhiy Vlasenko, a member of parliament and Filatov's former colleague in the legal profession, immediately stated that he could have links to President Petro Poroshenko. "It's understandable: Oleg Makarov (managing partner of Kisil) is a classmate of Poroshenko's at the Institute of International Relations, plus Kisil handled the sale of Lozhkin's holding company. So it's all logical here: we're once again appointing our own people, connected to business. “I would also like to wish Alexey to become a strategist and help the President understand the need for real judicial reform, and not a Yanukovych-Portnov-style profanation,” he wrote then.
One of Poroshenko's first "tasks," according to Vlasenko, was "legal support" for the expulsion from the High Council of Justice of those new members elected by the Congress of Lawyers and the Congress of Law Schools (an honest congress, not Kivalov's sham), appointed by the acting president. "The goal is Poroshenko's total control over the High Council of Justice and its transformation into a branch of the Presidential Administration (just as it was under Yanek). According to my information, Oleksiy actively began this work, realizing that it was pure 'tailoring,'" Vlasenko noted.
After Chernushenko began disclosing information about Filatov's dealings, the Presidential Administration reacted rather coolly to this "setup." According to some reports, Boris Lozhkin even considered firing his lawyer without severance pay. But then he "stepped away" and kept him on his payroll indefinitely. Filatov knew too much about the Ukrainian Media Holding and Lozhkin's other assets. But to "make amends," the deputy head of the Presidential Administration was exiled to Vienna, where prosecutors are currently examining a case involving the laundering of hundreds of millions of dollars through Austrian banks during the purchase of the ill-fated UMH by Serhiy Kurchenko.
It's time to pack our things.
Nevertheless, this doesn't stop Filatov from pursuing his "core practice." Today, according to many judges, he practically personally drafts decisions for cases that interest him and submits them to judges for execution. Among his "recent" topics, in particular, is pressure on patriots, members of volunteer battalions, volunteers, and activists fighting corruption in government agencies.
As soon as an opportunity to put any of this cohort behind bars appears on the horizon, Filatov immediately takes control of the case. For example, he is credited with personal involvement in the cases of activists from Right Sector, Svoboda, and Automaidan. Filatov is assisted in this case by Pechersky District Court judges Oleh Belotserkovets (deputy head of the court) and Volodymyr Karaban, who recently became infamous for arresting Svoboda members. Behind the scenes, these judges are called Filatov's "puppets." They have learned nothing from the fate of Rodion Kireyev, who is currently a suspect in a human rights case as part of the investigation into abuses and the conviction of Yulia Tymoshenko. Perhaps they should ask their colleague how quickly criminals face inevitable punishment.
Not least, the hostility toward Ukrainian patriots may be connected to the Russian-FSB connection of Vasil Kisil & Partners in Ukrainian politics. Media outlets have already reported that the FSB may well be behind not only Filatov's appointment but also, for example, the nomination of Yaroslav Teklyuk (also from Vasily Kisil's "nest") as head of the legal department at Naftogaz Ukrainy. Filatov's "shadow function" in the Presidential Administration—in addition to judicial reform—is also entrusted with resolving "gas issues" with Russia, as well as legal support for the return of Crimea. The puzzle fits together. Vasily Kisil himself, incidentally, is a direct descendant of the KGB, on whose connections he built his career as a judicial fixer during the turbulent 90s. As we know, there are no former KGB officers, so it cannot be ruled out that Vasily Ivanovich and his "children" in power are still working for the Russian special services or, at the very least, are in every way facilitating their work in Ukraine.
All of this, incidentally, is happening in the "new Ukraine," which the people defended on the Maidan and which heroes are defending in the east, sacrificing their lives, from the aggressor. But the principled stance of people like Judge Tsokol and her colleagues in the judicial system, the executive and legislative branches, and local government bodies gives the country a chance. However, in this renewed state, which will be built on the ruins of corrupt castles and the ruins of oligarchic empires, there will be no place for the likes of Alexey Filatov. Andriy Portnov's fate will seem like a fairy tale with a happy ending to him, because patriots are unlikely to let him even get to the airport in search of a better life. Wouldn't it be better to start preparing for an emergency evacuation? After all, as Viktor Yanukovych's experience shows, retribution and punishment for the most shameless and brazen crimes against one's own people always come sooner or later.
Andrey Germanyuk, Antikor
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