A prosecutor who reviews the integrity of his colleagues—and whose brother is a judge of the Supreme Court—could become...

A prosecutor who reviews the integrity of his colleagues—and whose brother is a judge of the Supreme Court—could become a judge at an influential court

Prosecutor of the General Inspection of the Office of the Prosecutor General Valerii Kravchuk (in the photo) is applying for the position of judge at the Specialized Administrative Court of Appeal. This is the court being created to replace the liquidated Kyiv District Administrative Court.

▪️Kravchuk is known for his involvement in the story about car floor mats. According to media reports, an entrepreneur from the Kyiv region picked up mats near a trash bin at a car wash, believing they had been abandoned.

The mats, worth 880 UAH, actually belonged to Prosecutor Kravchuk, and patrol officers, operational-search, and investigative teams were deployed to find the “culprit.” The entrepreneur faces from 5 to 8 years of imprisonment.

If that’s how they uncovered dishonest prosecutors, maybe the prosecutor’s office would be a little different.

At the interview, Kravchuk himself spoke about how he conducts covert checks of prosecutors and assured that the General Inspection is effectively working on proactive prevention of violations.

▪️So where was that proactivity in the case of Kropyva and his “Muza”? Did the inspection analyze their social media? What risks did it identify and what measures did it take?

You don’t even need a covert check to review social media. Yet for some reason Kravchuk wasn’t asked about this during the interview.

▪️Nor was he asked about his brother, Supreme Court judge Volodymyr Kravchuk. Or about his academic supervisor Semen Stetsenko, who, by a strange coincidence, is also a judge of the Supreme Court.

Moreover, Kravchuk’s brother, who previously served as a member of the Council of Judges, has repeatedly spoken out against judicial reform and the involvement of international experts—those who are now assessing his brother.

▪️There’s also an apartment story. Since January 2020 Kravchuk has declared use of an apartment of 63 square meters in Kyiv that belongs to his mother.

At the interview it turned out that both his mother and the prosecutor contributed funds to purchase the property. But ownership was registered only in the mother’s name. Why?

It seems Kravchuk doesn’t keep his dormitory registration by accident. If he were to become the owner of the apartment, he would lose the ability to receive official housing, a right he has repeatedly sought through the courts.

A separate question is the origin of the funds used for the apartment’s renovation and furnishings. Did his mother have sufficient income, or did the prosecutor also cover these expenses? This question was not clarified at the interview either.

▪️They also did not clarify how paid teaching was reconciled with the prosecutor’s work schedule.

Kravchuk prides himself on how he checks the integrity of other prosecutors. We would like to see the same scrutiny applied to him personally.

After all, questions about the candidate’s connections, the apartment, and moonlighting were raised in the Civic Oversight Platform’s appeal to the High Qualification Commission of Judges and the Expert Council. However, we still haven’t heard answers to a number of questions.