Poroshenko makes latest last-minute appointments, dismissals

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko continued to make
appointments and dismissals of key officials in his last weeks in office. He
signed a May 7 decree appointing 75 judges to the Supreme Court of Ukraine,
including 25 judges to the Appellate Administrative Court, 15 judges to the
Cassation Commercial Court, 13 judges to the Cassation Criminal Court and 22
judges to the Cassation Civil Court. In the appointment ceremony that day,
Poroshenko made a veiled warning to President-elect Zelenskiy not to reverse
his decisions. “I hope that the next president and his team respect the
decision for an independent and just court, which is fixed in the
Constitution,” he said. Zelenskiy will be inaugurated this month.

About 15 of the 75 appointments are questionable, in
the assessment of the DEJURE Foundation, a Western-sponsored NGO committed to
judicial reforms in Ukraine. Removing questionable appointments is possible
only by means of approving a special law that will allow for conducting another
review of these judges, the foundation’s experts said. Among the questionable
appointments are Judge Serhiy Mohyl, who illegally privatized and sold real
estate intended for office purposes, the experts said. Another appointment,
Judge Maksym Titov, issued illegal rulings against EuroMaidan protestors and
delayed court cases against those who persecuted the protestors. He also closed
at least 20 cases against drunk drivers in the last two years, the experts
said.

The same day on May 7, Poroshenko signed a decree
dismissing the commander of the National Guard, Yuriy Allerov, who was
appointed in December 2015. He appointed an acting head, Mykola Balan, with the
same decree. Recall, the prior day the president appointed a new commander of
the Joint Forces Operation.

On May 7, the president signed a decree appointing
Yuriy Artemenko to the National Communications and Information Monitoring Commission
after dismissing him as the head of the National Radio and Television
Broadcasting Council with a May 4 decree.

The judges of the independent High Anti-Corruption
Court elected Olena Tanasevych as its first head in a secret b allot vote held
on May 7. The court’s creation was approved by parliament in June 2018 to meet
IMF requirements and will begin functioning in September, the pravda.com.ua
news site reported. It will review criminal cases investigated by the National
Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, launched in 2014, and prosecuted by the
Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine, launched in 2015, both
created to meet IMF requirements.

Zenon Zawada: Poroshenko has been covering his tracks for months now, and these
last-minute personnel decisions are a part of that effort. Some of the
appointments will be very difficult for Zelenskiy to reverse, as with the
Supreme Court judges. It’s an example of the many obstacles Zelenskiy can
expect to face when taking the presidency. The political establishment will be
working against any serious reforms he has planned.