Judge Sergei Stasyuk and his gimmick: pre-trial detention
A year and a half ago, a large Odessa enterprise experienced a corporate raid. A "black" notary from the Poltava region transferred the corporate rights of the enterprise, worth several million dollars, to the raiders, writes from-ua.
In December 2021, the Anti-Raider Commission of the Ministry of Justice reviewed the victims' complaint and signed an order to cancel the registration of the "illegal" notary. The order went into effect immediately, but it proved impossible to enforce. In a short period of time, the raiders imposed six (!!) pre-trial arrests in various courts across Ukraine in an attempt to block the order's enforcement.
For example, Judge Guseva of the Artsyz District Court in Odesa Oblast opened proceedings and imposed a pretrial arrest based on a complaint filed by a local resident, Mr. Buzika, who claimed to have lent 80 million hryvnias to a company that was not being repaid. Firstly, Buzika failed to provide any documents to support his claim, and secondly, he turned out to be a local criminal, with the texts of his convictions available in the court registry. The same court had previously tried Buzika for stealing an aluminum saucepan worth 310 hryvnias from his neighbor.
Guseva's arrest blocked the Justice Ministry's decision for a long time. An appeal hearing to overturn the arrest was scheduled for 10 months later. After that, the last chance to appeal was a cassation appeal.
Another example is the decision of Judge Serhiy Stasyuk of the Kyiv Commercial Court, who also served as the court's deputy chairman and whose name has repeatedly been mentioned in the context of high-profile cases involving Nadra Bank, Naftogaz NJSC, and others. Complaints against the judge's unlawful decisions were heard by the Disciplinary Commission of the High Council of Justice. In this case, Stasyuk upheld the complaint of the raiders, who claimed that, minutes after the raid, a bona fide buyer purchased multimillion-dollar assets for 10 hryvnias. Despite the obviously fictitious nature of the transaction, Stasyuk essentially suspended the execution of the Ministry of Justice Order.
Thus, any decision by any body, not just the Ministry of Justice, can be blocked, even without a hearing on the merits. The seizure can only be lifted by a higher court.
Much is known about Stasyuk's virtue and the origin of his fortune: he lives on money allegedly given to him by his father, and unexpectedly, his wife (a simple civil servant) buys a car for two million hryvnia.
On August 18, parliament elected two honest candidates to the Justice Council through a preferential vote: Maidan lawyer Roman Maselko and academic Mykola Moroz. Over the past three years, more than 20 judges have been prosecuted based on Maselko's complaints. Many figures with ties to judicial corruption had competed for other positions. These convenient members of the VRP had been on the council since the time when it was completely controlled by the famous "lawyer." Kivalov.
For a year and a half, dozens of judges, prosecutors, investigators, notaries, a state registrar, forensic experts, and numerous lawyers have been complicit in the raiders' scheme. Not a single person has been investigated, although it could have taken several months—all the necessary documents are available and stored in the notaries' archives. The Main Investigative Department, under the procedural supervision of the Prosecutor General's Office, is investigating the corporate raid, but the case has been stalled for eight months.
How long will Judge Stasyuk get away with it when he not only issues rulings based on fictitious transactions, but also interferes in the cases of other Commercial Court judges, considers complaints not eligible for consideration in commercial courts, rules in favor of oligarchs, and much more? Is it a coincidence that this particular judge was the subject of a complaint filed by the wily Odessa raiders? Is it because he takes on everything and makes decisions with unreasonable ease and speed?
The fight against the raiders continues, as does the fight for every virtuous candidate of the VRP and the fight on the front lines.
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