Tanasevych attended social gathering involving scandalous judges

Olena Tanasevych, the chief justice of the High
Anti-Corruption Court, visited a Kyiv institute the same evening that it was hosting
a social gathering attended by two influential Ukrainian judges who are
currently at the center of high-profile scandals, the slidstvo.info news site
reported on Jan. 14. The Dec. 23 gathering was held at the Kyiv Institute of
Intellectual Property, an affiliate of Odesa Legal Academy that is owned by
Serhiy Kivalov, another lawyer with a scandalous legal background.

 

Tanasevych was in the same company as Pavlo Vovk, the
notorious chief judge of the Kyiv District Administrative Court, the news site
alleged, citing its anonymous sources. Vovk is currently a suspect in a criminal case of creating a criminal organization
among a circle of judges and attempting to seize power.

 

Also attending the gathering was Constitutional Court
Chief Justice Oleksandr Tupytskiy, who was behind the scandalous Oct. 27 ruling
disrupting the nation’s anti-corruption infrastructure. He has since decided to
ignore a presidential decree placing him on leave for two months, causing
another embarrassing situation for President Zelensky.

 

In the news report, a court spokesperson acknowledged
that Tanasevych visited the institute that evening, but it was strictly to
discuss the launch of an online course for students. These online courses were
announced on Jan. 12 on the websites of the academy and High Anti-Corruption
Court, a day after slidstvo.info submitted a formal information request.
Tanasevych didn’t interact with Vovk or Tupytskiy, the spokesperson said.

 

In a video interview with Transparency International
published on Jan. 16, Tanasevych reiterated that she didn’t interact with Vovk
or Tupytskiy that evening, but was in the same room as them after being invited
to the gathering. During the 30 minutes she was there, she said she saw several
familiar faces, greeting them, spoke on general topics and said she had to
leave. “The discussion didn’t involve any work-related topics,” she said.

 

A judge with the High Anti-Corruption Court reversed
on Jan. 15 a controversial decision he reached on Jan. 6 to deny the extension
of a pretrial investigation in the criminal case involving Chief Judge Pavlo
Vovk, the court announced on its website. With his ruling, Judge Andriy Bitsiuk
approved the request of investigators with the National Anti-Corruption Bureau
to extend their pretrial investigation in the criminal case against Vovk and
his cohorts for two months. The deadline for such a ruling was Jan. 17.

 

Zenon Zawada: We find
more fault with the institute’s administration, rather than Tanasevych herself,
for inviting her to a social gathering involving the scandalous judges. It
looks likely that she was unaware of their presence and she would have avoided
the situation had she been aware. We expect this mini-scandal will blow over
and won’t affect her professional standing.

 

What’s interesting about the Vovk investigations is
that the ruling on extending them was suddenly reversed after Tanasevych’s
visit was reported in the mass media. This is either a coincidence, the result
of some backroom dealings or an attempt by the court to mitigate Tanasevych’s
mini-scandal. We question this being a coincidence given the unusual way the
judge involved reversed his own decision from just a week ago. At the same time,
we don’t believe the judge had sinister motives that were tied to Tanasevych.
Certain actors likely saw an opportune time to correct a poor decision.

 

What has been overlooked in this incident is it
further confirms that both Tupytskiy and Vovk enjoy close ties to Ukraine’s
pro-Russian forces, given that they socialize with Kivalov (whom Ukrainians
remember most for leading the falsifications of the 2004 presidential
elections, at the position of the head of the Central Election Commission).
Meanwhile, such scandalous judges should be socially ostracized, rather than
invited to gatherings at a university.

 

These events offer more evidence that the Russian
influence in Ukraine promotes corruption and chaos, while the Western influence
is towards rule of law and order. Unfortunately, not enough Ukrainians
understand this, which is why they continue to support pro-Russian forces in
large numbers.