Decision on Privatbank nationalization illegality adopted by untrustworthy judges

Ihor Kolomoiskyi’s lawsuit regarding Privatbank nationalization was reviewed by Ihor Kachur, Volodymyr Keleberda and Vitalii Amelokhin, judges of the notorious District Administrative Court of Kyiv (the DACK), whose integrity was legitimately cast doubt on.

Volodymyr Keleberda, deputy head of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv, is known for resorting to a fictitious divorce with his wife to avoid declaring his country house and other property.

Igor Kachur failed to declare his property. In his declarations for the years 2013—2014, the judge did not indicate that he has a flat of 69.3 sq. m under the right to use since 2002, as indicated in his declaration for 2015.

Vitalii Amelokhin was adopting arbitrary decisions. In 2013, the judge adopted a resolution that legitimized the decision of the Cabinet of Ministers to remove the building of Hostynnyi Dvir in Kyiv from the list of architectural monuments and refused to initiate the inclusion of Hostynnyi Dvir in the State Register of Immovable Landmarks of Ukraine. The High Administrative Court subsequently admitted that the resolution was passed in violation of the procedural law requirements. In addition, judge Amelokhin illegally privatized an official apartment.

Interestingly, these judges had to undergo a qualifying assessment last month to confirm their professional ability, but the High Qualification Commission of Judges (the HQCJ) postponed interviews with them for unknown reasons.

The adoption of politically motivated decisions is a very vivid peculiarity of this court.

If we’d had a genuine judicial reform, i.e., if the DACK had not suddenly “disappeared” from the presidential decree on the liquidation of courts, and if its judges had been thoroughly checked for integrity, and the Presidential Administration had not continued to influence the courts as it always does, this decision, most likely, would not have been adopted.

Therefore, it is vital for the country to implement a qualitative judiciary reform so that only those judges who are ready to make decisions regardless of who the President is or who will be in three days would be working in the courts.

Mykhailo Zhernakov

Let us remind you that Privatbank became state owned after the decision proposed by the National Bank of Ukraine (the NBU) and Privatbank shareholders has been approved by the Ukrainian government. The state spent more than 155 billion UAH on the bank’s recapitalization.

In September 2018, the District Administrative Court of Kyiv confirmed the lawfulness of the NBU’s decision to recognize Privatbank to be insolvent rejecting a claim filed by the bank’s client.

Today, on April 18, the District Administrative Court of Kyiv found the decision to withdraw the insolvent Privatbank from the market with the participation of the state to be unlawful. The NBU will appeal this decision.

This is not the first politically motivated decision of the DACK — and another solid proof of the urgent need to cleanse the court of untrustworthy judges. Alas, the cleasing cannot be done while the HQCJ isn’t interested in it, and goes on with the judges qualification assessment in a conveyor mode with a civil society participation disabled. Therefore, the HQCJ itself should be restarted, and the qualification assessment of judges should also start anew then.