At its meeting on October 23, the Council of Judges delegated candidates to the Ethics Council, which will reform the High Council of Justice.
The votes for the candidates were distributed as follows:
Hanna Vronska 2
Lev Kyshakevych 26
Oleksandr Korotkevych 4
Victor Pankulych 1
Volodymyr Siverin 20
Sergiy Sotnikov 1
Yuriy Triasun 24
Tetyana Chumachenko 17
Do not support any candidate 1
Thus, the Council of Judges delegated four candidates - Lev Kyshakevych, Yuriy Triasun, Volodymyr Siverin and Tetiana Chumachenko.
Analysts of the DEJURE Foundation have doubts in regard to the integrity of two of these judges, Volodymyr Siverin and Yuriy Triasun.
In particular, Judge of the Kyiv Court of Appeal Yuriy Triasun was a member of the panel that released the Berkut officer suspected of killing three Maidan protesters. After his release from custody, the Berkut officer disappeared and is now wanted.
As for the retired judge Volodymyr Siverin, he has wealth of dubious origin and could have interfered in the work of other judges. Thus, according to the register of property rights, in 2021 his daughter of Vira Siverina was presented with a 6-room apartment of 222 sq.m. in Kharkiv. Dmytro Siverin, the judge’s son, received as a gift a residential building of 46 sq.m in 2021, non-residential premises of 185, 118, 45 and 277 sq.m in 2019, 10.4 sq.m in 2018, 143 and 114 sq.m in 2013. In 2018, the judge’s daughter Kateryna Siverina was presented with a 70.5-sq.m. apartment in Kharkiv. The basis of such gifts requires clarification.
Read more about the delegates of the Council of Judges in our analysis.
At the same time, delegating candidates to the Ethics Council means unblocking judicial reform, said Mykhailo Zhernakov, Chair of the board of the DEJURE Foundation.
"Finally, a miracle happened - the Council of Judges delegated its candidates to the Ethics Council. Although this happened more than a month after the statutory deadline, judicial reform was unblocked. But they will still not have a casting vote, so the chances of reforming the HCJ are higher than ever"
- said Mykhailo Zhernakov.
Earlier, in spite of provisions of the law on the HCJ reform, according to which the Council of Judges was given time till September 13 for delegation of the candidates to Ethics Council, in the morning on September 21 the Council of Judges approved Regulation on the selection of candidates for delegation to Ethics Council. Thus, according to the DEJURE Foundation, the Council of Judges was deliberately delaying the formation of the Ethics Council.
On September 23, G7 Ambassadors expressed disappointment with the timetable of the Council of Judges’ competition to the Ethics Council, as the timetable reflected in the Council of Judges' decision "does not reflect the importance and urgency of this reform".
On September 29, the President of the Venice Commission, Gianni Buquicchio called on all judicial and judicial authorities to refrain from measures, actions, omissions or procedures that could result in delays in the establishment of the Ethics Council, which in turn could cause irreparable damage to the implementation of the independent and efficient judiciary in Ukraine.