180 low-integrity judges may go back to work due to the decision of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court regarding judge Usatyi. This decision jeopardized the qualification assessment of everyone on the list.

‍Vitaliy Usatyi

These include judges recently caught taking bribes, such as Serhii Burkhan, as well as judges of the notorious DACK Kostiantyn Kobylianskyi and Dmytro Kostenko, as well as others with wealth that far exceeds their income, those who helped the authorities suppress protests during the Revolution of Dignity, got their positions through family ties, or relieved drunk drivers of liability en masse. All of them have PIC opinions stating low integrity; yet, they successfully passed interviews with 3-person HQCJ panels and the law prescribes that their assessment for fitness for office should be completed by the full composition of the High Qualification Commission of Judges.
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In the case of Judge Usatyi, the Grand Chamber, having no proper justification, decided that, despite the negative conclusion of the Public Integrity Council regarding the judge during his qualification assessment for the position held, the final decision is actually the one of the HQCJ panel, if it was adopted before December 30, 2023 (when the amendments to the law were made, to which the GC SC referred in its resolution). Such a drastic change in the previous long-standing practice of the Supreme Court contradicts the law, and most importantly, undermines the goal of the judicial reform, which is to cleanse the system of low-integrity judges.

The High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission for Judges did not support this position of the Supreme Court. In particular, they continued the qualification assessment of judges from the “180 list” and dismissed the infamous judge Inna Otrosh-Jr.

Inna Otrosh-Jr.

In its decision, the High Council of Justice noted that in the case of judge Usatyi, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court did not explain why it deviated from its previous conclusions in the same category of cases. The GC SC should actually indicate sound reasons, such as that the previous decisions were erroneous, ineffective, or the approach used therein was evidently outdated due to the development of social relations or legal framework in a certain sphere. No such grounds are indicated in the resolution on judge Usatyi; the Grand Chamber only point out the fact that it changed the previously used approach to resolving cases on disputing HQCJ decisions based on the assessment of a judge for fitness for office. However, the motives of such a change are not indicated, only the fact itself.

Notably, this decision also drew attention of Ukraine’s international partners, particularly in the recent report by the European Commission. According to them, the Supreme Court “deviated from its previous practice and which may undermine the qualification evaluation procedures involving the PIC.” Such major documents hardly ever point out a single specific decision. This serves to demonstrate how serious and truly dangerous this position of the Supreme Court is. At the same time, the HQCJ also did not support the decision of the Grand Chamber and began scheduling interviews with judges from the “Usatyi list.”

The Supreme Court helped Oleksandra Shulika, who regularly traveled to occupied Crimea, become a judge.

Candidate Shulika went to the temporarily occupied Crimea on vacation in 2014. It was when Russia had already annexed Crimea, there was constant bloodshed on the territory of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, Russians had shot down an Il-76 plane and a passenger Boeing-777, flight MH-17. After being appointed as a judge of the Onufriivskyi District Court of the Kirovohrad oblast, during 2015–2019, she repeatedly visited her grandfather in the Russian Federation, who did not want to move to Ukraine.

Despite these facts, in 2019, the previous composition of the High Qualification Commission of Judges found that Shulika had passed the qualification assessment and was fit for office. The new HQCJ recommended her appointment as a judge in 2023.

However, the rebooted High Council of Justice refused to file her candidacy to the President precisely because of her visits to the occupied Crimea and Russia.

The Supreme Court came to her rescue. The panel of judges at CAC SC decided that the HCJ’s refusal to file her candidacy was illegal and obliged the HCJ to reconsider Shulika’s candidacy. The High Council of Justice disputed this decision, but the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court upheld the decision previously issued by the CAC SC.

In its decisions, the Supreme Court indicated that HCJ’s refusal was unfounded, and that the Council had not found any circumstances or reasons that would indicate that Shulika had supported Russia’s aggressive actions against Ukraine or cooperated with the occupation authorities, or with Russian authorities during her trips to Russia in 2014–2019.

However, travelling to Crimea or to Russia as a judge or judicial candidate for leisure, entertainment, friendly visits etc. without an urgent need contradict the Judicial Ethics Code. This also hardly contributes to building trust in the court as an institution and its reputation. This may give an outside observer an impression that the judge or candidate tolerates the occupation and collaboration with the occupiers.

On January 14, the High Council of Justice appointed Oleksandra Shulika a judge of the Onufriivskyi District Court of the Kirovohrad oblast.

In February 2024, the Fourth Panel of the HQCJ did not recommend appointing Olha Zhoha to the position of judge of the Skvyrskyi District Court of the Kyiv oblast. The panel had doubts regarding the candidate’s compliance with the integrity criteria, particularly due to the discrepancy between her lifestyle and her declared income. The candidate had no official income from the second half of 2020 to 2023.
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During the interview, Zhoha explained that she had allegedly lived off the money of her retired parents and payments from the National School of Judges of Ukraine and Chernihiv Regional Employment Center, and used food grown in her own garden. In addition, she explained that in 2022, she lived in Italy off the funds of her sister’s husband. However, the candidate failed to prove any of this, particularly the point about growing her own food, since her declaration has no information about land plots that she owns or about her sister’s husband’s income in Italy. Her explanations were thus insufficient to dispel the Commission’s doubts.
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However, the Cassation Administrative Court within the Supreme Court (CAC SC) overturned the HQCJ’s decision, claiming that the Fourth Panel had failed to provide specific evidence to confirm their doubts. The court emphasized that the conclusions of the HQCJ were not based on the facts established regarding the plaintiff (although the candidate did not provide any evidence), but contain only the commission’s assumptions regarding the sincerity and truthfulness of her explanations, without providing reasons to substantiate this conclusion. Additionally, this decision by the CAC SC artificially restricted the range of individuals whose financial status the Commission may check only to immediate family. Thus, according to the Court’s position, the HQCJ cannot demand information about the financial status of other people close to the candidate, for instance, a brother-in-law, even if such people essentially supported the candidate financially. This creates unnecessary barriers to objectively assessing lifestyle. This approach ignores the realities when the financial status of the immediate circle of a judicial candidate has a direct impact on his or her own financial status. The HQCJ is currently appealing this decision with the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court.

In February 2024, the Second Panel of the HQCJ (Kydysiuk, Volkova, Sydorovych) did not recommend appointing Sofiia Kvasha as a judge of the Commercial Court of the Cherkasy oblast.

Second Panel of the HQCJ

One of the reasons was numerous errors and inaccuracies in her declarations. Furthermore, the panel had doubts whether the 2000 Volkswagen Transporter and the 2004 Daewoo Lanos purchased by the judge could have cost UAH 40,000 and UAH 45,000, respectively. Kvasha did not provide documents confirming such a low price for vehicles. Interestingly, at the time of purchase, the maximum allowable amount for cash payments constituted UAH 50,000.
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The judge disagreed and appealed the decision with the Cassation Administrative Court, which upheld the Commission’s decision. The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, however, overturned the decision of CAC SC and pointed out that Kvasha purchasing property at prices lower than the average market price in itself does not indicate her low integrity unless there is factual data proving the opposite. According to the Court, the HQCJ failed to prove that Kvasha indicated an unreliable price of the cars in her 2022 declaration. The Commission also allegedly failed to confirm the judicial candidate’s negligent attitude to the duty to file the declaration.

The appointment of Olha Stupak as a judge of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court caused major public criticism. And with good reason, such as illicit enrichment and lies in her declarations. However, first the HCJ, and then the Supreme Court itself, saved her from being held liable.
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Back in 2017, during the competition for the Supreme Court, the Public Integrity Council had doubts about Olha Stupak’s wealth (purchase of a brand-new BMW for UAH 1.4 million and a 380-square-meter house near Kyiv registered in the name of the judge’s mother-in-law). Despite this, the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) and the High Council of Justice (HCJ) disregarded this information, and Stupak became a SC justice.

‍Olha Stupak

Later the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) investigated the case of Stupak’s illicit enrichment and found that the judge’s mother-in-law purchased the house for the funds of Stupak’s husband, the judge had used the house since 2015, and also had failed to declare about USD 15,000 in her husband’s accounts. It turned out that Stupak had lied during the competition. More information about this is available here.

On this basis, Roman Maselko (formerly a lawyer, now a member of the High Council of Justice) made a complaint to the former composition of the High Council of Justice. However, the HCJ decided to ignore these facts at the time, since his evidence based on the materials of a criminal proceeding was allegedly unconvincing “since it is of general nature and is based on his personal subjective statements.”
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‍Then, Maselko turned to the Supreme Court to complain about the HCJ’s decision; however, in November 2023, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court (except seven judges) sided with Stupak, who was therefore able to avoid liability. The DEJURE Foundation analyzed this decision in detail back in April 2024.

As the Supreme Court noted, it cannot reassess the evidence in a disciplinary case and review the decisions of the HCJ. The Court found the Council’s assessment that Maselko’s reasoning based on materials of a criminal case were based on his personal beliefs acceptable. The SC also agreed with the HCJ’s position that it is the NACP that has the authority to check the completeness of declarations, even within a disciplinary case.

All judges who committed violations before 2021 will probably be able to avoid punishment thanks to the Supreme Court. That includes cases against judges of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv based on the infamous “Vovk tapes.”

Pavlo Vovk

In November 2024, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court overturned the decision of the HCJ regarding judge Nataliia Chernova, who had let off about 40 people charged with drunk driving. During 2018–2020, the delayed the consideration of cases and the closed them when the statute of limitations expired.
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The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court agreed with the HCJ that the judge had committed a disciplinary violation, but overturned this decision anyway, claiming that the HCJ had failed to explain why the three-year period for bringing the judge to liability had not expired.

However, the case files make it all clear: Chernova committed violations during 2018–2020; the complaint against her was filed in October 2020. And from this moment on, the calculation of the three-year period stops, and a disciplinary proceeding begins. In July 2021, the Disciplinary Chamber of the HCJ launched the proceeding, but then did not consider the case until the disciplinary function of the Council was restored, that is, until November 2023. And as soon as April 2024, it already brought the judge to liability. In her appeal against the decision, Chernova did not even refer to the allegedly missed deadlines, as the HCJ’s decision indicates.

It appears that this is not about the justification of the decision, after all. The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court puts into question the rule that calculation of the period for bringing a judge to disciplinary liability stops from the date when the complaint is filed, as well as for the course of the respective proceeding.
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An almost identical situation happened in the case of Ivan Zhyhalkin, judge of the Economic Court of the Kharkiv oblast. He received a warning of the High Council of Justice for violating the procedural law in the case on bankruptcy (according to Article 106, part 1, clause 1, subclause “a” of the Law). He disagreed with this disciplinary punishment and appealed it to the Supreme Court.

In September 2024, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court made the decision. The Supreme Court judges reassessed the HCJ’s decision (which they are not supposed to do) on whether the violation of the procedural norms was significant and also concluded that the judge’s actions had not shown intent or negligence.

The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court also found the HCJ’s decision concerning Zhyhalkin unfounded on the same grounds as in the case with Chernova. Zhyhalkin made the decision in 2019, and the complaint about his actions was filed to the HCJ in 2020, so the calculation of the three-year period for bringing him to liability stopped in 2020 and before the complaint could be considered on its merits.

According to the materials of the criminal proceeding (namely, covert investigative action), judge of the Dzerzhynskyi District Court of Kharkiv Iryna Hryshchenko had extraprocedural communication with a lawyer regarding the return of funds seized in the course of a search. She is accused of taking a bribe of USD 4,000. For this, first the Third Disciplinary Chamber, and then the full High Council of Justice, decided to dismiss her.

Judge of the Dzerzhynskyi District Court of Kharkiv Iryna Hryshchenko

Hryshchenko appealed HCJ’s decision with the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court. In this case, the court upheld the decision. However, there are two dissenting opinions of nine GC judges:  Stupak, Buleiko, Vorobiova, Yelenina, Zhelieznyi, Martiev, Pohribnyi, Shevtsova, and Korol. Despite the established practice regarding the HCJ being able to use pre-trial investigation materials in disciplinary proceedings, these judges opposed the use of covert investigation materials materials (telephone wiretapping, surveillance) in disciplinary cases. In particular, according to judge Korol’s opinion, the HCJ should not have used such materials and refer to them; therefore, the Council’s decision was unfounded and had to be overturned.

The HCJ dismissed the judge of the Synelnykivskyi City District Court of the Dnipropetrovsk oblast for violating the standards of procedural law. Yurii Hrechka groundlessly seized property (grain) and then cancelled this seizure, thereby exceeding the powers of an investigating judge, violating judicial ethics, and undermining the authority of justice.

Judge Hrechka disagreed with this decision and appealed it with the Supreme Court. Although the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court agreed with the HCJ that the judge’s actions had characteristics of a violation, it still deviated from its case law. The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court did not agree that the judge behaved in a way that discredited the title of a judge or undermined the authority of justice, since the judge had committed a violation of procedural standards. According to GC SC judges, in the event of a violation of substantive and procedural norms by a judge, the judge’s actions cannot be qualified as a disciplinary offense without the component of an “ethical offense.” For instance, such a violation should also include: disrespecting or insulting a participant in the judicial proceeding, disclosing confidential information that the judge learned in connection with the proceedings, extraprocedural communication with parties to the trial, avoidance of administering justice.

Judge of the Oktiabrskyi District Court of Poltava Hanna Andriienko filed her resignation in 2020. However, in 2021, the judge was brought to disciplinary liability and obliged to undergo a qualification assessment.

Andriienko is known for delaying the trial of 49 cases on drunk driving, which helped the drivers to avoid liability. In addition, in two of them, there were clear signs of falsification of the decision and information about the hearing. Among other things, two cases were closed before the statute of limitations on the cases expired. Subsequently, there were decisions on “fixing a writing error,” where the hearings allegedly took place after the statute of limitations expired. However, there are no summonses or any other evidence that they ever took place.

‍Hanna Andriienko

In February 2024, the HCJ refused to reopen her application to resign, citing the fact that the judge had not passed the qualification assessment. Andriienko appealed this with the Supreme Court.
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The CAC SC obliged the HCJ to consider Andriienko’s application to resign, even though she had not “served her punishment” in the form of the qualification assessment. The Court cited the HCJ’s inconsistent practice to suspend the resignation of judges who are undergoing the qualification assessment as a disciplinary measure. However, the Supreme Court failed to take into account that suspending resignation is solely at the discretion of the HCJ.  The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court upheld this decision of the CAC SC.

On December 19, 2024, the High Council of Justice granted judge Andriienko honorable retirement. Now, she will receive about UAH 75,000 per month and at least UAH 400,000 of one-time retirement pay.

The notorious former head of the Kyiv Court of Appeal Anton Chernushenko was caught taking a bribe back in 2015. Law enforcement agencies reported that during the search, he was found in possession of over USD 6,000 in cash, coupons for over 14 tons of fuel, and keys from 5 foreign-production cars registered in the name of his close relatives.

Anton Chernushenko was caught taking a bribe back in 2015

Chernushenko was suspected of illegally interfering with the court’s automated document management system and making knowingly unjust decisions. But the case was closed thanks to the decision of the judge of the Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv, Serhii Vovk. Then, the judge fled to Russia, and only in 2018 did the previous composition of the HCJ dismiss the judge for absences from work.

However, in 2022, Anton Chernushenko appealed this decision with the Supreme Court and, shockingly, ended up winning. Judges of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court found that Chernushenko’s dismissal had not been sufficiently justified, and the judge himself failed to show up to work exclusively due to “criminal prosecution and wanting to avoid the detention and arrest sanctioned at the time.”

The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court went beyond the disciplinary proceedings: the judges assessed the legality of bringing Chernushenko to criminal liability, established the circumstances in another case, which concerns the withdrawal of funds from the state in his favor. In addition, the Court stated that evasion from work did not discredit the title of a judge and did not undermine the authority of justice. That is, you are apparently allowed to be under investigation, wanted, fail to go to work and fail to perform the functions of a judge. Judges Vlasov, Hrytsiv, Hudyma, Zhelieznyi, Rohach, and Tkach disagreed with this decision in a dissenting opinion.

Now Chernushenko, who is 65, decided it was time for honorable retirement. Since the Supreme Court allowed him to retain the status of a judge, it essentially saved Chernushenko, since the High Council of Justice cannot do anything about him reaching a certain age.