Today, the Congress of judges elected three more members of the HCJ: Tetyana Bondarenko, Olena Kovbiy and... Serhiy Burlakov. The public had the most serious questions for the latter, in particular, regarding his visits to the Russian Federation and Crimea after its annexation and connections with Oleksandr Feldman, the former member of the already banned “Opposition Platform – For Life” party.
Thus, over these two days, the judges elected the worst among the 16 candidates recommended by the Ethics Council. The judges also demonstrated their unpreparedness for real agents of change in the judicial system.
The High Council of Justice will fully resume its work tomorrow since it has 15 members, the minimum number to become operational. We will evaluate the new team based on their decisions; the new HCJ has a chance to disprove the doubts of the public. The next decisions of the HCJ will be the election of the Head and the Deputy Head of the HCJ. After that, it will be possible to draw the first conclusions.
Yesterday, January 11, the Congress of Judges elected five members of the HCJ: Yuliya Bokova, Alla Kotelevets, Hryhoriy Usyk, Oleksandr Sasevych and Olha Popikova. Unfortunately, the public had questions for each of the elected members of the HCJ. It is unknown whether they refuted the doubts about their integrity since the interviews were closed. Information about the newly elected members of the HCJ can be found here.