President Volodymyr Zelensky has appointed 28 judges, 27 of whom have negative opinions from the Public Integrity Council because they do not meet the criteria of integrity and professional ethics.
These judges were appointed by President Zelensky at the request of the unreformed High Council of Justice, which appealed to him to "resolve the acute personnel crisis in the Ukrainian courts".
Most of the judges on this list received negative opinions due to the non-declaration of property and covering up drunk drivers.
For example, the judge of the Novodnistrovsky town court of the Chernivtsi region Oleksandra Lutsiv systematically "forgot" to declare help from her family, thanks to which she managed to build a house for 600 thousand hryvnias.
PIC's opinion on Oksana Makarenko, a judge of the Kharkiv Region Commercial Court, is 12 pages long and contains a list of properties of the judge and her family that do not match their official income - luxury cars, estates, vacations in Switzerland, Italy and the UK.
Why a negative opinion of the PIC is important
The law stipulates that a judge who has received a negative opinion of the Public Integrity Council is not considered to have passed the qualification assessment until a decision on it is made by the full composition of the High Qualification Commission of Judges.
The HQCJ may support the decision of the Public Integrity Council or overcome it by 11 votes.
Most of the newly appointed judges did not pass the qualification assessment, as they received a negative opinion of the PIC, which the HQCJ did not consider or revoke.
Currently, the HQCJ is not working - a competition for it has only recently been announced.
"Despite the fact that the law requires the President to appoint as a judge all those recommended by the HCJ, I believe that the President should have refrained from any appointments until the completion of the integrity check of the current members of the HCJ and the formation of the new HQCJ. After all, it makes no sense to initiate the reform of the HCJ because of doubts regarding its integrity on one hand, and to appoint judges whom such a council recommended with major violations of the law on the other".
- says Stepan Berko, Advocacy Manager of the DEJURE Foundation.
Full list of judges appointed by President Volodymyr Zelensky with references to the negative opinions of the Public Integrity Council about them:
Judge of the Lyuboml District Court of the Volyn Region Pavlus Oleh
Judge of the Kryvyi Rih District Court of Dnipropetrovsk region Koval Natalia
Judge of the Petrykivka District Court of the Dnipropetrovsk Region Soloviov Ivan
Judge of the Synelnykivsky City District Court of Dnipropetrovsk Region Poroshyna Olena
Judge of the Zhovtnevy District Court of Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk Region, Zimin Mykhailo
Judge of the Dobropil Town District Court of Donetsk Region Prytuliak Serhiy
Judge of the Malyn District Court of the Zhytomyr Region Salanda Olha
Judge of the Novohrad-Volynskyi Town District Court of the Zhytomyr Region Andriy Pomohaiev
Judge of the Velykobereznyansky District Court of the Zakarpattia Region Tarasevych Petro
Judge of the Melitopol Town District Court of the Zaporizhzhya region Ponomarenko Lyudmyla
Judge of the Zavodsky District Court of Zaporizhia Retynska Yulia
Judge of the Bolekhiv Town Court of Ivano-Frankivsk Region Smetanyuk Volodymyr
Judge of the Berezan Town Court of the Kyiv Region Dudar Tetyana
Judge of the Ivankiv District Court of the Kyiv Region Anatoliy Korchkov
Judge of the Fastiv Town District Court of the Kyiv Region Chernyshova Evheniia
Judge of the Kompaniivsky District Court of the Kirovohrad Region Oksana Reviakina
Judge of the Leninsky District Court of Kirovohrad Leonid Plokhotnichenko
Judge of the Severodonetsk Town Court of the Luhansk Region Makarenko Inna
Judge of the Korabelny District Court of Mykolaiv Korotkov Timur
Judge of the Leninsky District Court of Mykolaiv Konovets Mykola
Judge of the Frunze District Court of Odesa region Meieiechko Oleksandr
Judge of the Demydivsky District Court of Rivne Region Melnyk Dmytro
Judge of the Kolomatsky District Court of the Kharkiv Region Mykhailo Skliarenko
Judge of the Pervomaisky Town District Court of the Kharkiv Region Oleh Kochnev
Judge of the Shepetivka Town District Court of the Khmelnytsky Region Igor Ohorodnik
Judge of the Novodnistrovsky Town Court of the Chernivtsi Region Lutsiv Oleksandra
Judge of the Shchorsky District Court of the Chernihiv Region Maksym Chyhvintsev
On December 1, 2021, President Zelensky appointed another 28 judges, 21 of whom have negative opinions of the PIC. Thus, in total for December 2021 - February 2022, the President has already appointed 48 judges of low integrity.