Spots in the biographies of Supreme Court judges who successfully passed lustration.
(End. Read the beginning in the publication The Court Laughs in Our Face. In the publication The court laughs in our faces. Part 2: And these are the best of the best?.. — about 8 out of 16 judges of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Ukraine).
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President P. Poroshenko believes that the judicial corps is generally healthy. But we disagree. As an example, we decided to examine the personalities of 16 judges of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Ukraine. These judges have passed the so-called lustration check; judges—the best of the best, whose biographies must be exemplary and unblemished. Today, we publish the results of our "research" on the last eight judges on the list.
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9. Judge Elena Timofeevna Kuzmenko is a career judge and has served as a judge of the Supreme Court of Ukraine since 2006. She is known, in particular, for refusing to succumb to pressure from the Main Directorate of the Organized Crime Control Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2003, which demanded the immediate arrest of a Moscow crime boss nicknamed "Pimple" (Valery Pimple).
The fact is that on December 28, 2002, the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv sentenced V. Pryshchyk to three years' imprisonment for malicious hooliganism and released him in the courtroom, taking into account his detention during the investigation. He was acquitted of a number of serious charges, including organizing particularly malicious hooliganism and causing grievous bodily harm, including causing death. The charges were, to put it mildly, far-fetched, or more accurately, fabricated by the police. And the court refused to accept responsibility for the police's "wants." Then the leadership of the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and the allied leadership of the Kyiv Prosecutor's Office began pressuring Judge Olena Kuzmenko of the Kyiv Court of Appeals to quickly overturn the decision of her colleagues from the Shevchenkivskyi District Court. But E. Kuzmenko took a break, meticulously studied the materials of the "Pimple" criminal case and the court materials, and...
On April 15, 2003, the Kyiv Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the Shevchenkivskyi Local Court of Kyiv, which acquitted V. Pryshchik, co-founder of Rynok-1 LLC (Troyeshchyna Market), on several charges. In December 2003, Pryshchik was shot; the murder, of course, was never solved by the Organized Crime Control Department.
Today, it can be said that the Interior Ministry generals' target at the time wasn't "Pryshch" himself, who had long since retired from active criminal activity, but his business—the capital's largest market, "Troyeshchyna," and other assets. But while "Pryshch" remained at large, the generals couldn't shut down his entirely legitimate business. Unable to "shut down" (arrest) "Pryshch," they killed him. The manager of the executed crime boss's property was a traitor from his inner circle (likely recruited by the Organized Crime Control Department), Alexander Lishchenko, nicknamed "Licha." (Incidentally, Deputy Presidential Executive Officer Chmyr and the Kyiv gangster "Licha," a man of Litvin's, were behind the kidnapping of Automaidan activists.)
And, of course, the generals. Today, these generals and their colleagues from the capital's Organized Crime Control Department are closely ensconced in Petro Poroshenko's inner circle.
10. Vladimir Fedorovich Pivovar, judge of the Supreme Court of Ukraine since 1995. A career judge. Colleagues consider Vladimir Fedorovich one of the most qualified judges of the Supreme Court of Ukraine. One of the judges of the Supreme Court of Ukraine who fell out of favor with Renat Kuzmin, a former employee of the Prosecutor General's Office and a member of the Donetsk organized crime group "Lux" (Read more about it in the article Renat Kuzmin: The Family Business of Outlaw Prosecutors), who attempted to remove the judge from office on a flimsy pretext. However, he is involved in a high-profile "land" scandal involving judges of Ukraine's highest courts acquiring land in Kyiv confiscated from Chernobyl victims by the Oles Dovgyi-Leonid Chernovetskyi gang.
11. Judge Bohdan Mykolayovych Poshva – judge of the Supreme Court of Ukraine since 2004. He came to the judicial system from the prosecutor's office. He is one of the few Supreme Court judges who publicly expresses his civic position and views on key issues of judicial reform in particular. He enjoys respect among his colleagues as an undisputed professional and expert in international law in the field of human rights protection, which he demonstrates in practice. Unfortunately, he is also involved in a land scandal involving plots of land seized for judges from displaced Chernobyl victims.
12. Judge Anatoliy Ivanovych Redka – has served in the Supreme Court of Ukraine since 1995. During Viktor Yanukovych's rule, he was the subject of a number of commissioned, laudatory articles about himself. The publication of these laudatory articles, which bestowed highly positive characterizations on then-Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka, Yanukovych's advisor A. Portnov, and the "guarantor" himself, coincided with an attack on Judge A. Redka by Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin, who accused several Supreme Court judges of betraying their oaths. The goal of this government campaign was to forge a pro-government majority in the Supreme Court of Ukraine, which, in fact, Viktor Yanukovych's gang succeeded in doing. Apparently, Redka managed to reach an agreement with the authorities – Kuzmin stopped persecuting him and other Supreme Court judges. The laudatory media coverage of the judge also ceased.
13. Judge Viktor Fedorovich Shkolyarov has served in the Supreme Court of Ukraine since 2006. He entered the judicial system from the police. His only public appearance was as a judge who sided with Viktor Yanukovych's team in the 2011 case against the head of the Supreme Court, Viktor Onopenko.
14. Judge Valentin Ivanovych Kosarev has served in the Supreme Court of Ukraine since 1995. A career judge, he is one of the few judges in the Supreme Court who holds a clear civic position. In particular, at the 11th Congress of Judges of Ukraine (February 2013, at the height of the Portnov-Yanukovych "judicial reform"), V. Kosarev stated: "The judicial reform, organized by theorists who have never worked a single day in the courts, the prosecutor's office, or the police, has 'successfully' failed... The reform legislatively subordinated the judicial branch to the executive branch by transferring powers from the Supreme Court to higher courts and by influencing the selection and placement of court personnel. The slogan 'personnel decide everything' has once again become relevant." The judge also emphasized that as a result of this "reform," the courts have lost their independence. "We must tell the people directly that the courts will not protect them because they themselves are not protected," the judge concluded in complete silence. It took civic courage to make such a statement at that time.
Unfortunately, Valentin Ivanovich Kosarev also became involved in the aforementioned "land" scandal. Owning his own land and a "garden house" doesn't prevent this judge from using apartments in the Koncha-Zaspa state-owned dacha complex of the Main Directorate of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine. However, one in five residents of these villages has worn or wears a judicial robe.
In July 2015, the High Council of Justice's Section on Judicial Appointments and Dismissal recommended that the Supreme Council dismiss 174 judges for general reasons, including Valentina Kosareva. The Supreme Council approved the dismissal. However, for now, the judge continues to serve.
15. Anatoliy Nikolaevich Skotar (removed from the judicial chamber's personnel with regard to judicial proceedings) – served in the Supreme Court of Ukraine since 1989. We have already written that A. Skotar passed the lustration check – he is the very judge who sought reprisals against an ATO participant. The judge who illegally seized a roadway and a riverbank, threatening an ATO soldier with a weapon. His actions, his antics, his disregard for the law, his income, his arrogance, and his sense of supposed superiority over his fellow citizens, as it turns out, also raised no questions from the robed lustrators.
16. Judge Tatyana Stepanovna Taran (removed from the judicial chamber's personnel with regard to judicial proceedings) – served in the Supreme Court of Ukraine since 2007. A career judge of the "Soviet school." In July 2015, the High Council of Justice approved the dismissal of this judge "for general reasons."
The recent Plenum of the Supreme Court removed Anatoliy Skotar and Tatyana Taran from the Criminal Cases Chamber due to them having reached the age limit for holding the position of judge of the Supreme Court of Ukraine – 65 years.
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Necessary afterword
It should be especially noted that throughout Ukraine's independence, citizens have been virtually deprived of the opportunity to evaluate the human and civic qualities of Supreme Court judges due to the caste-based and non-public nature of Ukraine's higher court system. And when these judges issue rulings at the highest level, mere mortals are left to rely not on the reputation of a particular judge (there is simply no public reputation for Supreme Court judges), but on the will of God.
But this “medal” also has a downside.
For example, the seizure of a suspect's property (assets) is only possible through a court order (Article 17 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) based on a reasoned request from the investigative authorities. Tell me, how many judges in Ukraine are willing to seize the assets of "Akhmet," the leader of the Donetsk organized crime group "Lux," Viktor Medvedchuk, Nestor Shufrych, David Zhvania, the Klyuyev brothers, the Pshonkas, the Yanukovyches, and similar "friends" of the Ukrainian people?
Even if the investigator (miracle!) appears in court with irrefutable evidence, the judge will think a thousand times before risking his own life and that of his family members to grant the investigator's motion. Because killing a judge these days is as punishable as bribing them, and often cheaper. Example: A headless investigation. Not a single murder of a judge in Ukraine has been solved.
Moreover, the quality of Ukraine's judiciary is such that an honest, principled, and patriotic person could never fit into the thoroughly corrupt, unprofessional, and Russian-infiltrated "Kivalov system." And even if an "honest person" somehow managed to secure a judicial position, such an eccentric was never allowed to hear any significant or significant cases and had no prospects for career advancement. In the courts, everything was and still is decided by court chairmen—careerists, protégés of various oligarchic groups and even the Russian secret services.
Moreover, the state itself does not guarantee, or even strive to provide, physical protection even to those judges who bear the burden of procedural participation in cases in which the pseudo-elite of the nation and "Putin's friends" are now looming large among the defendants.
Worse still, the country's top officials are demonstrating examples of duplicity, personal corruption, collusion with Ukraine's enemies, disrespect for the court, and manipulation of the judicial system. And this is the most destructive force for the country's judicial system.
So from whom should a judge, even if he is honest and incorruptible, expect physical protection for himself and his family?
So who should investigators and prosecutors approach with indictments today, even if they were incorruptible patriots? What can we expect from today's Ukrainian judges in this mess?
And what can we expect from Yanukovych's successors in the highest government positions, if these people—all billionaires and multimillionaires—have done nothing at all to change the law enforcement system itself in the 10 months since the bloody denouement on the Maidan (let us emphasize: the new police force owes its name exclusively to taxpayers and the US government)?
The prosecutor's office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) remain the same. The lustration law is being sabotaged everywhere. In the 10 months since the Maidan victory, not a single high-profile crime committed during and after the Maidan, nor even before it, has been solved. This is the final verdict on the system, an integral part of which is, among other things, current President Petro Poroshenko and his corrupt entourage.
Worse still, the new government is demonstrating a purely commercial approach to Ukraine's enemies: anything can be negotiated, only the price is discussed – be it Klyuev's business, smuggling in Crimea, or Putin's murder of Ukrainians.
All efforts to reform the country's law enforcement system are impossible without a complete "reset" of the judicial cadre. The vast majority of the old cadres have already proven themselves incompetent and incapable of confronting the scoundrels in power—primarily, the scum.
Only a complete overhaul of the Ukrainian judicial system can restore Ukrainians' lost trust in the people in robes, the courts, and the decisions they render. No one is irreplaceable. All the talk about "valuable professionals" who can't be replaced is merely an excuse for the authorities, who find it convenient to exploit intimidated judges—slaves of the oligarchic system. And through "pocket" courts, they essentially keep millions of disenfranchised Ukrainians in slavery.
This system must be broken. If necessary, together with those who hold it so dear.
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Konstantin Ivanchenko, Argument
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