Bohdan Lvov: How a judge of the Kharkov City Court of Ukraine came to this point
To the judges of the Cassation Economic Court as part of the Supreme Court on October 3 not enough one vote to dismiss Bohdan Lvov as its chairman. For several weeks, he had been trying to prove that he does not have Russian citizenship in response to an investigation by journalists from the Radio Liberty program "Schemes", published in mid-September.
Lvov called the information about his Russian passport a fake and an attempt to remove him from office. Although Lvov's Russian citizenship confirmed and the Security Service of Ukraine, clarifying that the investigation into this matter is ongoing. Without awaiting the results, Supreme Court Chairman Vsevolod Knyazev declared Bohdan Lvov's powers terminated due to his acquisition of Russian citizenship and dismissed him.
Why Lvov could not be fired from his administrative position as a judge and how the Chairman of the Supreme Court managed to remove him from the staff - in the text "Grat».
Bohdan Lvov, the "Old" Chairman
Lvov Bogdan Yurievich Born in Zaporizhzhia, he became a judge in 1992, first serving in the Kyiv Garrison Military Court, then the Central Region Military Court, and then in the Kyiv Commercial Court of Appeal.
In April 2014, he became head of the Supreme Commercial Court, where he had already worked for ten years. In his bid for the position, he competed against Viktor Tatkov, who, along with his deputy, Artur Yemelyanov, subsequently became a suspect in a case involving interference in the automated case distribution system. Both are currently outside of Ukraine.
"I'll be honest, running against Tatkov wasn't exactly safe. Today, he's a former court chairman hiding abroad. But back then, he wasn't hiding. And he was truly very influential," Lvov said. interview with "Left Bank" in June 2018.
Following a competition as part of President Petro Poroshenko's judicial reform in December 2017, Lvov became head of the commercial cassation court. He had a high chance of becoming the Supreme Court's chairperson, but lost the position to Valentyna Danishevska, who also served in the commercial courts. She resigned at the end of November last year, and Lvov was immediately re-elected as chair of the cassation court.
Judge Bohdan Lvov. Photo: Lvov's Facebook page
The competition for the new Supreme Court consisted of several stages: testing, a practical assignment, a psychological test, and an interview. A profile was compiled for each judicial candidate and published on the website of the High Qualification Commission of Judges, which conducted the competition. Lvov's profile stated that he holds no citizenship other than Ukrainian.
According to Article 126 of the Constitution of Ukraine, a judge's powers are terminated, among other things, if they acquire the citizenship of another state. This same provision is duplicated in Article 121 of the Law "On the Judicial System and the Status of Judges." The law distinguishes between the concepts of termination of a judge's powers and dismissal from office. A judge can be dismissed by the High Council of Justice, whose members are not yet authorized to make such decisions. However, a judge's powers are terminated automatically, according to the law.
Journalists and Boris Lvov
On September 15, journalists from Radio Liberty's "Schemes" program published an investigation claiming that Lvov holds Russian citizenship. They released several documents from Russian registries confirming this. According to the journalists, Lvov received citizenship in Moscow in 1999, even though he was already a judge at the Central Region Military Court at the time.
The basis for issuing the passport, as claimed in the investigation, was the military ID card Lvov received upon graduating from the Red Banner Military Institute of the USSR Ministry of Defense. The Higher Military Educational Institution of the USSR Armed Forces, which trained officers with a higher military-legal education for military prosecutors and military tribunals, officers with a higher military-philological education, and political workers and special propagandists for the Soviet Ministry of Defense, as well as retraining and advanced training for officers, was closed in 1994.
Documents presented by journalists of "Schemes"
In 2012, according to journalists, Lvov renewed his passport upon turning 45. Journalists established that on the day he signed the application for the passport issued in his name, he was in Moscow, having arrived from Kyiv by train.
According to investigators, Lvov owned part of his mother-in-law's apartment in Moscow, which he transferred to his wife in 2012 through a deed of gift using his Russian passport. However, he failed to disclose his wife's ownership of the Moscow apartment in his tax return, prompting the National Anti-Corruption Bureau to open a criminal investigation on September 19.
After seeing the documents from the "Schemes" journalists, Lvov asked them to leave them with him so he could contact law enforcement. He denied Russian citizenship and implied that the documents were forged to discredit him.
Lawyer
To verify the veracity of the information in the "Schemes", the lawyer Dmitry Gadomsky conducted his own investigation — submitted inquiries and obtained documents from Russian registries, calculating the likelihood of a match with a person with the same last name, which Lvov stated as one of the explanations for the appearance of his passport renewal application. Ultimately, the lawyer concluded that Lvov does, in fact, have Russian citizenship. According to Gadomsky, data from "Schemes" can be found in various Russian databases dating back to 2001—in various forms, in information about people with whom Lvov was connected in one way or another.
"In my opinion, such a massive forgery is simply impossible. Imagine if Guy Ritchie, ten years after the release of 'Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels,' added another scene and tried to re-upload the new version to all film archives, online cinemas, and all pirate platforms and torrents. That leaves a third possibility: Bohdan Lvov is mistaken when he claims he doesn't know he has a Russian passport," Gadomsky wrote in his article for the Dead Lawyers portal.
"I have no reason to consider Bohdan Lvov an enemy of Ukraine; I am unaware of any instances of him making patently unjust decisions. I also don't believe that his Russian passport or real estate in Russia cast a shadow on the judge before 2014. After 2014, in my opinion, this is unacceptable for a Ukrainian judge," the lawyer added.
Judge Boris Lvov
In addition to his comments to the "Schemes" journalists, Bohdan Lvov wrote five posts on Facebook to prove that both the journalistic investigation and the activists' claims regarding his citizenship status were false. Previously, he had only posted annual thanks for birthday wishes on his page.
"I have never received, have never had, and do not have Russian citizenship (or a passport or tax identification number)... I am convinced that the dissemination of false information about me is aimed at vacating the position of court chairman (either forcibly or voluntarily), which should facilitate the influence of interested parties on the outcome of commercial disputes," he wrote immediately after the "Schemes" report aired.
Lvov also wrote that he asked the SBU and the State Bureau of Investigation to check the journalists’ information, since he believes that its dissemination in wartime conditionsaims to destroy the system of state power in Ukraine and directly influence the results of consideration by commercial courts of cases involving the Russian Federation and persons complicit in the aggression, which has the characteristics of an official crime».
Documents with discrepancies in dates that Bohdan Lvov drew attention to
The judge also noted an inaccuracy in the documents published by journalists: the passport application listed series 4598 and number 589684. At the bottom, the issue date was August 24, 1999. Another document, dated December 9, 1998, listed the passport with this series and number as invalid.
"To put it simply, according to the journalists from the program 'Schemes,' I somehow strangely received a passport in 99 that had been invalidated back in 98. And now comes the most interesting part: for some reason, the journalists from 'Schemes' cut out the line in the document in their investigation that revealed this discrepancy. Why do you think they did this? And was it an accident?" wrote Lviv in the next post.
Author of "Schemes" Natalia Sedletskaya explained The discrepancy is due to the fact that old passport files from the 90s were not digitized for a long time.
"We assert that the correct date of issue of Bogdan Lvov's first Russian citizen passport is July 22, 1999. Firstly, in many databases and registries, particularly real estate ones, Bogdan Lvov's first passport appears as having been issued in July 1999. It's clear that when entering this information, for example, when registering the ownership of an apartment, the original document—the actual physical passport or a copy of it—was being used. Secondly, this is entirely consistent with the logic of the written form 1P, from which we see: the citizenship application is dated June 29, 1999, the passport assignment date is July 22, 1999, and finally, a month later, on August 24, 1999, Lvov signs the application to confirm its physical receipt," she says.
Lawyer Gadomsky noted that the reason for this discrepancy remained unclear to him.
Lvov discovered another inaccuracy in the form filled out to obtain a passport after age 45. The date of completion was October 26, 2012. However, according to Lvov, this form was approved in the Russian Federation only a month later, on November 30, 2012, by Federal Customs Service Order No. 391. It was not put into effect until May 27, 2013.
"Someone decided they could use journalists to pressure judges. No way. I've decided to address this matter to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. I'll also be discussing this issue with representatives of Western democratic institutions and members of the US Congress in the near future. I'll go to the extreme to protect honor and dignity, as well as the independence of the judicial system!" Lvov wrote.
Journalists of "Schemes" responded Lvov: The questionnaire form they published was from 2009. And they analyzed in detail every column the judge referred to.
Lvov decided to stop “public debates and discussions” after publication of the results of two polygraphswhich he went through to convince his colleagues and the public to tell the truth.
"I await the exposure of those who orchestrated this dirty campaign, the purpose of which was to undermine not just trust in me, but trust in the entire Supreme Court!" he wrote on Facebook.
More judges
The day after the journalists' investigation was published, Lvov met with judges and court staff. As in his posts, he denied everything. But the judges collected the required number of signatures and, on their second attempt, convened a meeting to vote on Lvov's dismissal as court president.
A few hours before the October 3 meeting, the Supreme Court press service reported receiving a response from the Security Service of Ukraine: Lvov indeed holds Russian citizenship. The security service also noted that it was conducting an investigation into the matter. But even this argument failed to convince the majority of judges present at the meeting to vote for Lvov's dismissal. Twenty-one judges voted in favor, with 18 against the required 22.
"21 to 18 is a psychological victory. Imagine if it were the other way around. It's this majority that allows us to move forward and keep the situation open. Yesterday's meeting wasn't about arguments and their refutation, but about a worldview. It's impossible to argue with; it's the foundation of how we perceive the world. Our 18 colleagues believe that the court can exist in conflict with society, but we don't," the judge said.commented on the results Judge Ivan Mishchenko, who was one of those who initiated the meeting, attended the meeting.
According to another judge of the Cassation Commercial Court, Anna Vronskaya, according to the court's rules, following the failed vote to dismiss Lvov, he has immunity for a year.
"But we voted to lift this immunity and subsequently revisit the dismissal issue. It is unacceptable for a judge accused of obtaining Russian citizenship, given Russia's aggression, to hold such a position. This poses a serious reputational risk to the court as a whole," Vronskaya told Grati.
Another of her colleagues, Elena Kibenko, publicly called for Lvova resigned from her position as head of the court voluntarily. She was one of four candidates for the position of court president in 2017. At that time, the court's "young wing" was unable to organize and elect a leader from among its ranks. The cassation courts were headed by so-called "career" judges, including Lvova.
"We are not claiming that Bohdan Lvov, Chairman of the Cassation Commercial Court, is a Russian citizen or owned property there. These facts must be established by the competent authorities. But such accusations, supported by documents, are too serious and cannot be ignored," Kibenko wrote in one of her first Facebook posts about the situation.
Lvov decided to take leave while law enforcement officials investigate his allegations. In correspondence with Graty, he stated that he was taking leave from October 4 to 14. When asked if he planned to resign, he replied, "If the investigation drags on, that's a possibility. I don't want to undermine the court."
Supreme Court Chairman Vsevolod Knyazev. Photo: Knyazev's Facebook page
But the Chairman of the Supreme Court Vsevolod Knyazev recalled Lvov from vacation the very next day and issued an order The Supreme Court's chief justice declared him a judge whose powers had been terminated due to his Russian citizenship and dismissed him from the court. The Supreme Court chief justice called his decision difficult.
"This is an unprecedented decision for the judicial system, as these provisions of the Constitution and the Law ["On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges"] are being applied for the first time. But during a full-scale war with the Russian Federation, when our finest citizens are dying at the front and in the rear, we cannot allow even the slightest doubt about the objectivity, independence, and impartiality of the Supreme Court and all its judges."
According to him, the court trusts the information provided by the Security Service of Ukraine, but Lvov has the opportunity to challenge it. Knyazev noted that, despite Lvov's objections, "his actions and the situation itself seriously damage the court's authority, which should never happen."
Skelet.Org
By topic: The Old Face of Judicial Reform: How Bohdan Lvov Will Run the Supreme Court
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