Threatened a judge with criminal prosecution to get a job at the SBI — another Ablov case in the High Council of Justice

Judge Yevhenii Ablov is doing everything possible to prevent the disciplinary case in the High Council of Justice (HCJ) from reaching a decision, and every month of this delay is paid for from the state budget.

Yevhenii Ablov is an associate of Pavlo Vovk, the former head of the now-liquidated District Administrative Court of Kyiv (DACK). His case in the Third Disciplinary Chamber of the HCJ was opened back in July 2025. The complaint concerns a conversation between Ablov and Pavlo Vovk about putting pressure on judge Basai, head of the Kyiv District Administrative Court, and judge Alona Kushnova, in order to ensure that she would issue a ruling in Ablov’s favour.

Ablov lost the competition for the position of head of the Mykolaiv territorial office of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) and tried to overturn the result through the Kyiv District Administrative Court. The case was considered by judge Kushnova. NABU recordings captured Ablov consulting with Vovk about possible ways to influence Basai, the head of the court. Vovk suggested applying pressure through criminal prosecution by the SBI and advised Ablov to tell Basai that everything had already been coordinated with the leadership of the SBI. Ultimately, judge Kushnova ruled in Ablov’s favour, but the decision was later overturned as unlawful.

Criminal proceedings were also used as a tool of pressure against members of the High Qualification Commission of Judges a year ago, at the moment when the Commission approached the qualification assessment of judges of the DACK and the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv. This demonstrates the continuity of the same practice: the SBI is once again being used as leverage in the hands of the judicial mafia.

Before the hearing on the merits began, Ablov filed several motions to recuse HCJ members Tetiana Bondarenko and Oleh Kandziuba. All of these motions were rejected by the Chamber. Ablov’s arguments were as follows:

• the Administrative Court of Cassation within the Supreme Court is considering his lawsuit against the HCJ seeking to declare its actions unlawful and to recover moral damages due to the disclosure during an HCJ meeting of information about his health condition. On this basis, Ablov claims that Bondarenko is biased;

• Bondarenko and Kandziuba were co-authors of the statement signed by 11 HCJ members regarding the admissibility of using materials from criminal proceedings in disciplinary cases;

• another lawsuit filed by Ablov — this time directly against HCJ member Oleh Kandziuba — is pending before the Odesa District Administrative Court.

In this way, Ablov seems to be trying to remove from the case those HCJ members whom he considers “unacceptable”.

HCJ member Bondarenko also asked Ablov what, in his view, had been the purpose of the NABU recordings. He replied that the tapes had allegedly been created “using artificial intelligence” in order to discredit the DACK — a court which, according to him, had taken a “principled position” on certain decisions and was therefore liquidated. The question remains open what exactly this supposed “principled position” consisted of — unless it was the systematic adoption of anti-Ukrainian rulings.

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The hearing ended with the announcement of a break in order to question witness judge Oleh Basai and to examine the materials of covert investigative actions. No new hearing date has been scheduled.

A year ago, the First Disciplinary Chamber of the HCJ had already submitted a motion to dismiss Ablov. He appealed that decision, and the High Council of Justice in plenary has still not been able to put an end to the case due to the constant lack of quorum.

During all this time, Yevhenii Ablov continues to receive judicial remuneration — about UAH 78,000 per month. In total, over three years, UAH 157 million from the state budget has already been spent on salaries for judges of the liquidated DACK, and this amount increases by roughly UAH 4 million every month.

We call on the High Council of Justice not to yield to pressure from the former leadership of the DACK and from Ablov himself, and to bring this disciplinary case to a decision. Delaying the process is an old method of avoiding accountability at the expense of taxpayers.