Ukrainian judges who participated in the competition for judges of appellate instances are challenging the decisions of the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) regarding the competition results. More than 70 lawsuits have been filed with the Supreme Court, including a lawsuit by the acting judge Tetiana Shuvalova. She stated this during a meeting of the Temporary Investigative Commission in the Verkhovna Rada, as reflected in the transcript, UNN reports.
She is convinced that there were numerous violations during the competition, and the examination commission assigned scores at its own discretion, without a clear evaluation methodology for everyone. The result of this approach was the victory in the competition of individuals close to the members of the HQCJ and the HCJ.
The first thing Judge Shuvalova draws attention to is that the head of the HQCJ, Andriy Pasichnyk, who is one of the three members of the examination commission, for some reason decided to be on annual leave precisely during the competition, and then immediately on sick leave.
"The High Qualification Commission provided an answer to my request that Pasichnyk, the head of the commission, was on annual basic leave from February 24 to 28, and on sick leave from March 3 to 11. That is, for the entire period from the moment I wrote my work until the approval of the conclusions by the plenary composition of the commission, the head of the HQCJ was practically without powers. Accordingly, I had a question whether a member of the HQCJ, who does not have such powers, can check my work and evaluate it. I made more requests, I made many requests to the HQCJ, and received information in response to my request that the evaluation by the members of the examination commission, access to the information base, to practical tasks is carried out from automated workstations of internal authorized users in the local network of the system. This is the HQCJ's answer signed by the deputy head of the secretariat. Checking outside the building is impossible," Shuvalova said.
In turn, the head of the HQCJ, Pasichnyk, during the TSC interrogation, stated that he did indeed check the contestants' works at home. When asked by TSC members how the contestants' works ended up at home, he said that someone brought them, but refused to say who. Pasichnyk also stated that after checking the works, he entered the scores into the authorized HQCJ system, and then burned the judges' works.
The second thing Judge Shuvalova draws attention to is that the works of the judges-contestants were evaluated using a scoring system, but no one knows what methodology was used to assign scores, and the HQCJ and the members of the examination commission cannot explain it.
Such facts, according to the competition participants, may indicate that the HQCJ committed numerous violations during the selection of judges, and as a result, organized a victory for its own. In particular, Ruslan Raiimov, an assistant to the head of the HQCJ and a member of the examination commission, won the competition. He lived and worked in Russia until 2019, and was deemed dishonest when he tried to get a job at the Prosecutor General's Office. Rostyslav Moskal, a Lviv judge and a classmate of HCJ member Roman Maselko and HQCJ slang Roman Kydysiuk, also won.
Following the parliamentary TSC's statement, criminal proceedings have been initiated against HQCJ officials. The investigation is to verify facts of official forgery, abuse of influence, and possible manipulation of competition results.
At the TSC meetings, a proposal was also made to invite representatives of the European Union so that they could personally hear what is happening in the commissions under their supervision and in public organizations involved in the selection of judges.
Recall
The Temporary Investigative Commission was established by a resolution of the Verkhovna Rada on June 19, 2025. Its tasks are:
1. To collect, analyze, and verify information about possible corruption or corruption-related offenses in courts and law enforcement agencies (excluding the direct administration of justice).
2. To assess the effectiveness of these bodies' actions in combating corruption and identify systemic shortcomings that lead to impunity.
3. To investigate the influence of interested parties or conflicts of interest in the activities of law enforcement agencies.
4. To prepare and submit proposals to the Verkhovna Rada regarding changes in legislation to increase the transparency, accountability, and independence of law enforcement agencies, courts, and the judiciary.
Serhiy Vlasenko, a People's Deputy, was elected as the head of the TSC. The expert group is a consultative and advisory body to the TSC, consisting of 22 people.