Inna Rafalskaya
The Ukrainian legal community is a real "jar of spiders," and to see this once again, one only needs to wait until the third congress of lawyers, which will take place in Mukachevo on November 20-21. If it takes place, of course. The previous extraordinary congress in Odesa was effectively disrupted by the efforts of the Kyiv branch of the Council of Lawyers, headed by the notorious Inna Rafalska. Her henchmen, supported by allies from several other regional organizations, staged a veritable riot in the hall, attempting to prevent the participants from making the planned decisions, including the election of three members to the High Council of Justice.
Rafalskaya's supporters also hoped https://censor.net.ua/resonance/283964/kto_kogo_sezd to oust the current head of the National Association of Advocates of Ukraine (NAAU), Lidiya Izovitova, and appoint their own replacement. Given the Kyiv organization's large membership, implementing the event according to her scenario could have been successful. But after Kyiv residents failed to appoint their chairperson and realized they lacked the votes to pass resolutions, they simply began blocking the congress. They even resorted to dousing the presidium table with mother's milk https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=G83Iaf0YwlQ directly from the source of the moisture.
There's no doubt that the Kyiv organization will have surprises this time as well, and it will try to thoroughly prepare for them. In any case, Rafalskaya makes no secret of her dislike for the current leadership of the National Bar Association and the Kyiv Bar Council, and is publicly arguing with them. Specifically, the Kyiv Bar Council, which collects dues from its members, refuses to transfer them to the central office, demanding a report on the use of funds for the past year. Because of this, Kyiv lawyers have encountered difficulties obtaining extracts from the registry, which the NABA has blocked due to non-payment. Without these extracts, lawyers are effectively unable to practice their profession, falling victim to a scam by local authorities. Moreover, while demanding transparency from the central office, Rafalskaya herself is undergoing a lavish, European-style renovation of her office, financed by the Council. Moreover, Rafalskaya, on behalf of the Kyiv Bar Council, concocted a letter to the Ministry of Justice demanding that the NAAU take control of the registry, but her proposal was predictably dismissed, sent to negotiate with "enemies."
Inna Rafalskaya
Although, if the ministry had sided with her, no one would have been surprised. There's a type of person who thrives under any government—Rafalskaya is a prime example of such opportunists (her puppeteer, David Zhvania, is a similar case, but more on him later). It seems she's always held the highest positions in the legal profession. Power in the Pechersk Triangle has shifted, but negotiating with them to retain her position in exchange for certain favors has never been difficult for Rafalskaya.
Rafalska was initially lobbied for the position of Chair of the Kyiv City Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of the Bar (QDCA) by her father, Vladislav Kalny, a prominent Justice Ministry official. Interestingly, the Kyiv QDCA was supposed to be formed by the City Council, as in other regions, but Rafalska managed to circumvent this regulation through the courts, which led to trouble for Judge Shostak of the Shevchenkivskyi Court over this decision. The seasoned legal community discussed this scam for a long time.
In general, in 2005-2006, Rafalskaya was in full swing: catching the demand for reform during the "orange" wave, she prepared her proposals for reforming the prosecutor's office. Later, by her own consent, she joined the working group on reforming the prosecutor's office and the bar https://www.president.gov.ua/ru/documents/14200.html?PrintVersion under President Yanukovych, which was headed by the now persona non grata, but then all-powerful Andriy Portnov (Read more about it in the article Andrey Portnov: A Raider's Story). And she even contributed to the law "On the Bar and Legal Activity," passed by the pro-Yanukovych Verkhovna Rada. This further illustrates the claims of Rafalska and the "revolutionaries" she leads, who claim that the current leaders of local government bodies are tainted by their collaboration with the previous government and are subject to lustration, as is now the fashion. As the saying goes, it's time to start with yourself.
Especially if you consider who this lawyer, who claims to be the leading lawyer in the profession nationwide, once represented. Of course, a lawyer can't be judged by their client's personality. But while there are lawyers who, sometimes even at their own expense, defend the disadvantaged and victims of abuse by the "rich kids," there are those for whom the client's financial status is the primary factor when choosing a case.
Among Rafalska's clients was Viktor Pylypyshyn, the notorious former head of Kyiv's Shevchenkivskyi district (https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2013/11/15/7002253/), who was accused of abuse of office, resulting in 15 million hryvnias in damages to the capital. During his second run in the parliamentary elections in the "seeded" district, Pylypyshyn hid behind parliamentary immunity, but lost the last election resoundingly, as voters fully appreciated his promises and efforts.
The "pseudo-revolutionary" also opposed the Pavlichenkos, father and son, accused of murdering Judge Zubkov. The case caused a huge stir in society, particularly in opposition circles at the time. Although the government, with Rafalskaya's help, convicted the Pavlichenko family on patently far-fetched charges, the Verkhovna Rada, after Yanukovych's flight, released them https://fakty.ua/177641-esli-delo-pavlichenko-spornoe-i-neodnoznachnoe-ego-stoilo-peresmotret-no-eto-dolzhen-byl-sdelat-sud-a-ne-verhovnaya-rada.
Rafalskaya, along with another member of the Kyiv Bar Council and her business partner at the Ukrainian Law Firm – International Legal Assistance, Igor Boyko, defended in court the interests of such figures in the Yanukovych regime as the Family’s “cashier,” Serhiy Kurchenko, and the former Minister of Finance. Yuri KolobovHere, as they say, comments are superfluous regarding a person who stutters about lustration.
As head of the Kyiv Bar Council, Rafalskaya actively lobbied to grant tax authorities access to the substance of legal advice provided to companies and individuals by lawyers. This concern for tax authorities, at the expense of her clients, sparked confusion and outrage among the legal community.
A retinue of raiders and plagiarists
Rafalskaya's friends and partners deserve special mention. Over the years of her legal career, she has amassed quite a number of associates, many of whom, with their dubious biographical episodes and "achievements," would make even she envious. Moreover, many of them are Rafalskaya's partners in the aforementioned law firm https://ukrbaras.com/uk . People close to the leadership of the Ukrainian Bar Council say that a rare meeting of these "combat girlfriends and friends" goes by without a "glass of tea" and the singing of drinking songs, and Rafalskaya's penchant for alcohol is well known in the professional community.
Who are Inna Vladislavovna's close associates and dining companions? For example, her business partner, Irina Pikh, is remembered for her role as the lawyer for the controversial former governor of the Zakarpattia region, Ivan Rizak, who was implicated in organizing unrest during the 2004 presidential campaign. At the time, Rizak was a close associate of the notorious Viktor Medvedchuk.
Rafalskaya's friend Larisa Merkulova, a member of the Supreme Audit Commission, which could evaluate the Kyiv organization's work, is effectively blocking her work, along with Alexander Bashuk, who will be discussed below.
Lawyer Tatyana Kozachenko, along with Rafalskaya, is battling Izovitova, claiming the latter hasn't practiced law in a long time and has therefore lost her professional qualifications. However, Kozachenko herself hasn't lost her touch – she owes her meteoric rise to her collaboration with the Svitovenko family, whom detractors claim are members of the "Lelik-Boliki" criminal group. The Svitovenkos, father and son, once owned Megamax, one of the oldest chains of electronics stores, which eventually went bankrupt. Svitovenko "became famous" https://antikor.com.ua/articles/16904-viktor_svitovenko__shahraj_zlodij_i_zlochinetsj_vin_ne_vartij_vashogo_golosu for the raider seizure of the premises at 11 Shota Rustaveli Street. Kozachenko and her business partner at the law firm "Capital" represented Svitovenko in this murky case. Moreover, Kozachenko directly petitioned to be brought in as a third party https://pravoscope.com/act-postanova-910-4431-13-smirnova-lg-12-08-2013-ne-viznacheno-s.
The same scheme, involving Kozachenko as a third party, was also used in the dispute over the premises of the Latvian Parex Bank, which was also appropriated by a greedy family. Kozachenko is a friend of the scandalous lawyer and social activist Tatyana Montyan, whom she actively supports in her political endeavors.
One of the candidates Rafalskaya wants to install as head of the NAAU is Kateryna Koval, Izovitova's current deputy and another of Rafalskaya's colleagues from the Ukrainian Bar Association. For Rafalskaya, this figure is ideal because she is completely dependent and easily manipulated. Koval began her career under Valery Yevdokimov at the public association "Union of Lawyers of Ukraine." She twice attempted to become a member of parliament – in 2012 as a member of the UDAR party, and in the last election, as an independent candidate in the 15th constituency of the Vinnytsia region. What she was hoping for is unclear, as her results were, to put it mildly, dismal. Admittedly, she even attempted to conduct some semblance of an election campaign. In one interview, she authoritatively stated that she had spent two years creating a system of free legal aid. Although this is, to put it mildly, an exaggeration, and, frankly, a lie, since this system was created based on the law https://legalaid.gov.ua/ua within the Ministry of Justice. And during the 2012 elections, Koval was caught engaging in blatant manipulation: she registered her assistant, Tatyana Kisil, as her official representative at the Central Election Commission. Kisil, who was paid by the NAAU secretariat and was effectively Koval's subordinate, was effectively her subordinate. However, the Election Law prohibits candidates from using subordinates, including their proxies.
Another attempt to claim credit for someone else's work was exposed when Koval published an article entitled "Strategy for the Development of the Prosecutor's Office" in a legal journal. In October of this year, Natalia Petrova, a speaker at a meeting of the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation (NAAU), alleged plagiarism on Koval's part, noting that her presentation of the Strategy had been submitted to the NAAU back in April 2014, while Koval's article was published later and contained blatant plagiarism. Moreover, Koval clearly reused part of Petrova's work, apparently because, as the head (deputy chair of the RAU), she had access to her materials.
Koval ran for a seat on the High Council of Justice at the controversial Odesa congress, and if the issue is revisited in Mukachevo, she will likely run again.
But the most colorful character in Rafalskaya's entourage is undoubtedly her "right-hand man," Oleksandr Bashuk, the primary agent of her intrigues. He can be considered a victim of the political repressions of the "Kuchma regime," under which he spent a year in pretrial detention. The reason for this was organizing the seizure of the Communist Party Central Committee building in 2000. A group of young people, led by Bashuk, demanded the banning of the Communist Party, the withdrawal of the Black Sea Fleet from Crimea, and Ukraine's withdrawal from the CIS. A few hours later, the invaders surrendered to the authorities. Then-Prosecutor General Mykhailo Potebenko revealed some curious things about Bashuk: that he promised the invaders apartments, cars, and university admissions in exchange for the operation. Bashuk's "fledglings" themselves reported that their leader intimidated and threatened them. In pretrial detention, Bashuk wrapped himself in toilet paper soaked in sunflower oil and set himself on fire, suffering severe burns. After https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2000/11/8/4360535/ an unsuccessful self-immolation, he declared a hunger strike and ended up in intensive care.
After being released under amnesty, Bashuk found a job as an assistant to the well-known "whistleblower" MP Grigoriy Omelchenko and returned to his old ways. This time, however, he decided to seize not the useless Communist Party office, but the Kherson Collegium school, boasting of his parliamentary connections. With the help of unknown men in camouflage, he physically removed the school's legitimate management (Bashuk's old acquaintances, the Rodnenok family), appropriated the school's property, and... declared it bankrupt without paying its employees' back wages. He even legalized his corporate raid with the necessary ruling from a local court.
Over time, Bashuk became close to the increasingly popular Svoboda All-Ukrainian Union (VO Svoboda), became its candidate for Kyiv mayor, and served as its representative on the Central Election Commission during the 2007 parliamentary elections. In 2009, he became embroiled in a "gay" scandal when members of the Sumy branch of this party, with its peculiar ideology, left the organization, citing their inability to associate with Bashuk, a homosexual. But that's just...
A trail of scandals haunted our hero. Having "dealt" with the school, Bashuk took over the publishing business owned by herbalist Natalia Zubitskaya. Zubitskaya claimed that Bashuk and another lawyer, Yuriy Didovets (who ran for the Radical Party in one of Kyiv's constituencies in the current elections), offered her their legal services, and she appointed Didovets director of several of her businesses. But over the course of two years, she claims, the pair siphoned off millions of hryvnias from the Green Planet party and Zolotsvet LLC. According to Zubitskaya's lawyer, a search of Didovets' premises uncovered an underground workshop for counterfeit medications based on Zubitskaya's prescriptions, along with the herbalist's property, which disappeared after her apartment was burglarized. It's worth noting that Didovets is a member of the Kyiv Bar Council, which is controlled by Rafalskaya.
Bashuk was also involved in an attempt to seize the Lisova Pisnya housing cooperative, but his and his accomplices' plans were thwarted by the intervention of the prosecutor's office.
This is the motley crew at Ms. Rafalskaya's disposal, who is currently attempting to seize control of the entire legal community. Moreover, this entire group operates in close collaboration with her notorious "beloved friend" and political tumbleweed, David Zhvania, and the odious Serhiy Kivalov, who maintains influence over the judiciary. Zhvania, who, according to Supreme Court of Justice member Serhiy Vlasenko, fancies himself the new Andriy Portnov, lost the election in a district in the Odesa region by a landslide, but is trying to put on a brave face, claiming to act in the interests of the president and with his blessing. Rafalskaya and her organization are a powerful tool for Zhvania's machinations, who doesn't shy away from the dirtiest of tactics to achieve his goals. Specifically, the attempt to disrupt the election of the Supreme Court of Justice's members representing the Bar is linked precisely to the reluctance to allow members not controlled by Zhvania onto the council.
But Kyiv's lawyers aren't just the individuals listed above, but five thousand professionals who have effectively become hostages to behind-the-scenes games. If they manage to escape the influence of the crooks who are blindly exploiting them, all attempts by Rafalskaya and Co. to divide the already, frankly speaking, less-than-consolidated legal community will be doomed.
Irina Boyko, for ORD
Subscribe to our channels in Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, VC — Only new faces from the section CRYPT!