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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
⁉️ Verdict for Labaziuk’s driver against the backdrop of family ties with members of the judiciary? Who presided over the high‑profile crash case and why questions about the court’s impartiality arise
We promised to return to the judge who issued the verdict in the car crash case involving the vehicle of Member of Parliament Serhii Labaziuk. And there is indeed a lot to discuss… But first, a reminder: 27 April 2026, in Khmelnytskyi a traffic accident occurred involving a BMW driven by Vladyslav Havryshko and a Range Rover driven by Bohdan Shudra, with Serhii Labaziuk as a passenger.
Later Havryshko admitted guilt and received a verdict. However, when we reviewed the decision, an interesting detail emerged: the court limited itself to the defendant’s testimony and deemed it unnecessary to examine other evidence regarding the factual circumstances of the crash... In other words, other evidence about the mechanics of the accident was not examined at the hearing, even though expert examinations had been conducted in the proceedings.
And then another question arose: who exactly issued that verdict? — Judge Marczynkevych. And this is where it gets most interesting…
An article by From‑UA titled “The family of judicial oligarchs: How the Marczynkevych clan shields raiding and corruption of MP Labaziuk at the highest level” describes alleged informal ties between the MP and the influential judicial Marczynkevych family. In particular, it mentions the same Serhii Marczynkevych who later issued the verdict in the crash case involving Labaziuk’s car.
The investigation claims that Vitalii Marczynkevych, a former judge of the Dniprovskyi District Court of Kyiv, is godfather (kum) to Serhii Labaziuk. Moreover, the authors called Vitalii Marczynkevych the person through whom the MP allegedly could resolve matters in courts and law‑enforcement agencies.
So we have a rather striking configuration. On one side is MP Labaziuk, whom journalists call the godson of Vitalii Marczynkevych. On the other is Vitalii’s brother, Judge Serhii Marczynkevych, who heard the high‑profile crash case involving Labaziuk.
And it is this very judge who issues the verdict after the BMW driver’s full admission of guilt, without examining other evidence regarding the undisputed factual circumstances.
The article also described another high‑profile story — a corporate dispute around the state enterprise “Experimental Farm ‘Proskurivka’.” The then‑head of the enterprise, Dobrianskyi, publicly accused Labaziuk of attempting a raider takeover of the state farm. The piece raises the possibility of influence by members of the Marczynkevych family on the course of judicial proceedings.
Returning to the crash: we have Judge Serhii Marczynkevych. We have his brother Vitalii, whom journalists name as Labaziuk’s godfather. We have publications about alleged contacts between this family and the MP in the context of legal disputes.
And we have a verdict in which the defendant fully admits guilt while the court does not examine other evidence concerning the undisputed circumstances of the accident.
❓ Did Judge Serhii Marczynkevych know about possible personal ties between his brother and Labaziuk? Did he himself maintain contacts with the MP or members of his family? Were there circumstances that could have given rise to reasonable doubts about the judge’s impartiality and justified his recusal?
The public has the right to know whether there were personal or family circumstances that could have affected the perception of the court’s impartiality in this high‑profile case. Especially when it concerns a crash involving a Member of Parliament who is already subject to a separate anti‑corruption investigation by NABU and the SAP.
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