NABU Director Semen Kryvonos and SAP Head Oleksandr Klymenko are asking the Prime Minister to increase the salaries of judges of the High Anti-Corruption Court. Such actions by these two law enforcement officials violate the Constitution and discredit the court as an independent branch of government. This was written by former SAP prosecutor Stanislav Bronytskyi, reported by "Ukrainian News".
In particular, Bronytskyi quoted a letter from the heads of NABU and SAP, in which they ask to increase judges' salaries.
"We draw your attention to the fact that the activities of NABU and SAP are inextricably linked with the HACC. In view of this, in order to properly ensure the administration of justice by the HACC, we ask you to pay attention to the need to resolve problematic issues of the HACC. It is considered expedient to cancel the limitation of the subsistence minimum for able-bodied persons, which is used to determine the basic size of the official salary of a HACC judge," the former SAP prosecutor quoted the letter.
He noted that the initiative to raise salaries does not come from the court, but in fact the head of the SAP and the director of the Bureau are asking to lift restrictions for judges. In his opinion, such actions by officials discredit the court.
"Ukrainian News" emphasized that, according to the provisions of the Constitution, the judicial branch of government is independent, and judges are protected from various attempts to influence their decisions by a number of other current legislative acts of the state. In addition, the independence of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) is a key EU requirement for Ukraine's integration, which provides for full autonomy from any influence and protection of judges from interference in their work, journalists reported.
At the same time, they stated, public accusations of "loyalty" to the procedural needs of NABU and SAP are still periodically heard against the HACC.
As reported earlier, there are critical systemic violations in the work of the HACC and NABU. This refers to interference in the automatic distribution of cases and support for the prosecutor's position exclusively in the HACC, as well as ignoring evidence, forming an indictment based on a predetermined version, and the use of "provocations" by NABU detectives.
European courts do not trust the HACC and the entire anti-corruption vertical. They state the absence of fundamental guarantees of procedural fairness and human rights protection.
It is also known that High Anti-Corruption Court judge Kateryna Sikora, whom the NACP suspects of illicit enrichment, extracted half a million hryvnias from the budget through the court. Judge of the Appeals Chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) Valeriia Chorna sued the state for 1.7 million UAH in underreceived judicial remuneration for the period from January 1, 2021, to March 31, 2024.
The Kyiv District Administrative Court ruled to pay millions in additional payments to HACC judges Andriy Bitsyuk and Olena Tanasevych.