Five months passed, and minimum high-profile cases were considered. The High Council of Justice delaying accountability for notorious judges.

Do you remember when the High Council of Justice (HCJ) approved the Regulation according to which complaints should be considered due to their priority? In particular, public interest and actions leading to dismissal were defined among those criteria. However, there’s a discrepancy between the perception of priority cases between the HCJ members and the, as some of the most significant cases remain untouched.

Pavlo Vovk & Co. Although the District Administrative Court of Kyiv judges are accused of seizing state power, the HCJ does not rush to hear complaints against them. Meanwhile, Pavlo Vovk files various lawsuits against the HCJ.

Oleksiy Tandyr, a judge accused of violating traffic rules while intoxicated, resulting in the death of a National Guard officer, seems to be stalling the deliberation of the complaint by requesting recusals of the Disciplinary Chamber members. It has been almost three months since the case was initiated.

Vsevolod Knyazev, the former head of the Supreme Court, is accused of receiving a bribe of $2.7 million for resolving the case of the Ferrexpo Poltava Mining Plant. In addition to the complaint related to this case, there is another in the HCJ concerning an apartment in Pechersk for a thousand UAH. While the court found Knyazev guilty of a corruption offence regarding the restriction on receiving gifts, the HCJ hasn’t even commenced proceedings.

Yuriy Slyva, Viktor Hlynyanyi, Ihor Palenyk, and Vyacheslav Dziubin are judges from the Kyiv Court of Appeals who were caught receiving an illegal benefit of $35,000.

Ihor Kudryavtsev, a judge from the Starobilsk District Court of Luhansk Oblast, is suspected of treason for joining the “LNR District Court.”

Volodymyr Pyatkovsky, a judge of the Kolomyia District Court in Ivano-Frankivsk region, was caught accepting a bribe for a drunk driving case. The HCJ completely halted proceedings because, allegedly, they did not receive materials from the prosecutor.

As we can see, the HCJ has plenty of work to do, yet there are no visible results. However, it is notable that the HCJ closed and returned over 2300 disciplinary complaints. It is unclear what prevents the HCJ from prioritising the cases mentioned above. DEJURE Foundation continues to monitor the work of this body and hopes to see the high-profile cases on the agenda shortly.