The HQCJ falsifies the voting process to avoid dismissing dishonorable judges

During a regular meeting of the High Qualification Commission of Judges today, June 12, this falsified process became quickly apparent with the Facebook post of one member of the HQCJ. After the voting related to judge Inna Hryban concluded, a member of the HQCJ wrote that he is not prepared to accept the “fruitlessness” of his vote and is “washing his hands of the process.”

The HQCJ is comprised currently of 15 members and, to overturn a negative ruling of the Public Integrity Council (PIC) regarding the qualification of judges, a quorum of 11 members is required.

The aforementioned judge, Iryna Hryban, today did not receive the eleven required votes (Andriy Kozlov and at least one other member at the meeting opposed overturning the negative opinion on her qualifications). However, rather than recommending Hryban to be dismissed, the Commission decided to announce a break in the qualification assessment of the judge. The Chair of the Board of the DEJURE Foundation and the Coordinator of the Public Integrity Council, Mykhailo Zhernakov, wrote on his own Facebook page that one of the HQCJ members discussed the issue over the phone with the Head of the Commission (it was in fact confirmed by the Presiding Judge later), and the HQCJ member Kozlov left the meeting in protest.

Additionally, today’s meeting of the Commission began 90 minutes late although the required number of members for quorum were present. Lawyer Roman Maselko noted that the reason for this could be waiting for another member so that the Commission could approve the exact decision it needed to overturn the conclusions of the Public Integrity Council.

It seems that in those cases when 11 unified votes aren’t available, therefore the judge cannot be saved from the ‘evil’ PIC and the dismissal, they’d call a break until ‘better times’ / ‘reinforcements arrive’, for which a simple majority is enough.

Andriy Kozlov

In order to ‘push through’ a judge with a negative conclusion from the PIC, 11 votes are required. And one of the members, Andriy Kozlov, is ‘unreliable’, which is to say that he does not want to vote for the dishonorable. In order to neutralize the ‘Kozlov factor,’ Serhiy Prylypko (appearing in the judicial forum at the time) was specially and urgently called in.

Roman Maselko

I do not know what is still needed for proof that the qualification assessment by the HQCJ is a farce, and that it shares nothing with the cleaning up of the judicial corps. And as long as we do not rebuild the Commision with the participation of civil society and foreign experts, we will not have any judicial reform.

Mykhailo Zhernakov

It should be noted that since the moment of the reinstatement of the qualification assessment in March 2019, the HQCJ overturned all 180 conclusions provided by the PIC relating to the non-compliance of judges with criteria of integrity and professional ethics. Additionally, the HQCJ permitted significant violations in the process.

In particular, the HQCJ “restores” honor to such judges as Oleh Hlukhanchuk, who violated both traffic rules and judicial ethics rules: he drove a car in a state of alcohol intoxication and behaved aggressively with police. He also disseminated false information about this incident.