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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The High Council of Justice postponed consideration of matters regarding the selection of the Commission’s leadership to 2 September 2026.
Formally – supposedly because several Commission members were absent and their right to self-nomination might be violated.
The real reason – Mr. Pasichnyk (the acting head of the High Council of Justice) lacked the votes needed for re-election. And he wants to be re-elected.
What did Pasichnyk’s activity leave as an impression on the legal community?
The spread of the phenomenon known as “Raiimovshchyna” – appointing assistants, relatives, and friends to judicial positions.
And now just a few quotes from the parliamentary temporary investigative commission’s report:
The Temporary Investigative Commission established that the Head of the High Council of Justice, Andriy Pasichnyk, was supposed to evaluate 210 works, but during the period designated for the review he was on sick leave—hospitalized (which the Feofaniya Clinical Hospital confirmed in response to the Temporary Investigative Commission’s request). According to the log-in journal data, during the entire period he accessed the system only once—on 9 March—and assigned all the scores for 210 works within intervals of 2–3 minutes, which objectively rules out the possibility of a real review of the works. This indicates probable interference with the automated scoring system or a merely formal nature of the review. At the Temporary Investigative Commission meeting on 21 October 2025, A. Pasichnyk confirmed that he reviewed the works but not in the system; the works were printed and he reviewed them at home. A. Pasichnyk stated that the works had been sent to him by email, which is a gross violation of 30 information security rules. Earlier A. Pasichnyk said the works were handed to him in printed form, and before that in the courtroom (as reported to the Temporary Investigative Commission) – on a flash drive. A. Pasichnyk’s testimony is contradictory. Who gave him the works – A. Pasichnyk refused to disclose, citing 63 of the Constitution of Ukraine. A. Pasichnyk refused to answer most direct questions from members of the Temporary Investigative Commission.”
… “The inspector to the head of the High Council of Justice, A. Pasichnyk – Ruslan Raiimov – also successfully passed all stages of the competition for a judge position, despite serious questions about his integrity, his possession of a Russian tax identification number, and work in Russia. The accumulation of these examples indicates the systemic creation by the High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission of Judges of special conditions for promoting ‘their own’ candidates, which deprives the competition of transparency and equality. Such imbalances confirm the practice of selective and subjective evaluation.”
..
“The actions of A. Pasichnyk and other members of the High Council of Justice have signs of crimes provided for in Articles 361, 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.”
.. “Unlike Belgian practice, after the Temporary Investigative Commission received testimony from A. Pasichnyk that revealed obvious violations of the procedure for evaluating candidates’ practical works, the High Council of Justice, the High Qualification Commission of Judges, and the Judicial Ethics Council publicly defended him. Such a reaction demonstrates the desire to preserve the existing system, which bears signs of a ‘circle of mutual protection,’ and does not foresee real consequences for officials despite obvious violations of the law and procedural norms.”
👌 Here it is – another result of grant-seeker reforms.
