Due to workload, consideration of complaint against actions of Supreme Court judges in Shepelev's case may be delayed for months, but there is a chance for a legal decision - AntAC

Supreme Court judges Vyacheslav Marynych, Volodymyr Korol and Alla Makarovets, who changed the sentence of ex-MP Alexander Shepelev, accused of a series of contract killings, high treason and other crimes, and tried to release him, should be dismissed if the High Council of Justice (HCJ) finds that the decision was illegal. However, the consideration of the prosecutor's complaint against their actions by the HCJ may be delayed for months due to the heavy workload of the body. This opinion was expressed by Vadym Valko, lawyer of the Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC), in an exclusive commentary to UNN.

 Obviously, in this case, if the decision is really illegal and the actions of the judges in such a decision, in the motivation of this decision, for example, a significant disciplinary offense can be traced, then this is the basis for disciplinary liability of such judges, including a recommendation for their dismissal. And according to the law, this is the authority of the HCJ. So, what to do is to file a complaint and have it considered. I hope that it will be considered within the time limit, and the HCJ is the only body that can make such decisions

He reminded that the HCJ is a key body of judicial governance that decides on dismissal of judges based, for example, on complaints in disciplinary proceedings.

"Now the HCJ has been essentially renewed, with a new composition that is more trustworthy. But not without questions, including about the decisions already made," Valko said.

As an example, the lawyer cited the decision on judge of the Pechersk District Court Tetyana Ilieva, who is accused of making an illegal decision that canceled the arrest of more than $100,000. According to him, she had no right to consider this case at all, but the HCJ refused to remove her from the administration of justice.

"That is, the HCJ has both good decisions of this new composition and questionable ones. Therefore, answering your question whether there is a chance that there will be a legal decision in a legal way, it is obvious that the chance of this has increased after the HCJ's renewal. As for how much time is available, the question is that since we did not have the HCJ for a long time, it did not consider disciplinary proceedings against judges, and only recently, just a month ago, the HCJ was given back the authority to consider disciplinary complaints, so there are about 12 thousand of them," Valko said.

According to him, the HCJ has developed and approved a procedure for prioritizing the auto-distribution of these complaints, and most of them have been auto-distributed. According to the lawyer, it is obvious that complaints in which the statute of limitations for prosecution may expire will be considered first, followed by other complaints that, for example, are being received now.

"Therefore, it is obvious that this is not a matter of the next few months, and this period will definitely be extended in time, because a large number of complaints have simply not been considered before," Valko said.

The lawyer also emphasized the danger of a precedent that the Supreme Court judges could create by committing a number of procedural violations.

"The law says that lower courts must take into account the conclusions set out in the rulings of the Supreme Court," he said.

Valko added that courts do not immediately take into account every decision of the Supreme Court.

Context

In particular, the Supreme Court panel decided to close one of the episodes of the case, which concerned bribery, due to what they considered insufficient evidence. In addition, the judges significantly reduced Shepelev's sentence by crediting him with the period of stay in the Russian pre-trial detention center from March 19, 2015 to July 8, 2016. At that time, Russian law enforcement officers detained him following an extradition request from Ukraine. While the issue of his extradition to Ukraine was allegedly being resolved, Shepelev actively cooperated with the Russian Federal Security Service and was supposed to be held in a pre-trial detention center. A year later, Russia still refused to extradite the fugitive MP to Ukrainian justice, citing threats to its own national security.

The Supreme Court panel also took advantage of the Savchenko Law and counted his time in a pre-trial detention center on charges in other cases as part of his sentence. Thus, according to the decision of the cassation instance, Shepelev has fully served his sentence under the verdict of the Desnianskyi District Court of Kyiv of August 7, 2020. In addition, due to the closure of the bribery cases, the former MP's property will not be confiscated. The prosecutor appealed the actions of the Supreme Court judges to the HCJ. According to the automatic distribution, the complaint on Shepelev's case will be considered by the first ever HCJ member judge who is fighting on the frontline against Russia - Olena Kovbiy.

To recap

Earlier, it was revealed that Shepelev was valuable to Russia because he was an agent of the Russian special services. This is evidenced by documents written by him. In particular, an explanatory note to the director of the FSB.  This is also confirmed by his active position on justifying Russian aggression and the annexation of Crimea, which he expressed during communication with FSB representatives.  Experts interviewed by UNN have previously questioned the objectivity of the Supreme Court's decision, speaking frankly about the corruption component. In particular, according to Mykhailo Zhernakov, Chairman of the Board of the DEJURE Foundation, Supreme Court judges could have received monetary rewards for such a decision.  Political analyst Oleksandr Kochetkov believes that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) should check the integrity of the judgeswho made such a decision in the Shepelev case.