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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court voided the decision to dismiss three Kyiv Court of Appeal judges whom NABU and SAP suspected of taking bribes. It is claimed that there were procedural violations during the consideration of their case.
Suspected Kyiv Court of Appeal judges not dismissed
The Supreme Court overturned the decision of the High Council of Justice to dismiss the defendants in a case whom anticorruption bodies suspect of taking bribes. The situation around reinstating the rights of judges exposed to corruption demonstrates serious gaps in the system of cleansing the authorities. This was stated by Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Center against Corruption.
According to him, the overturning occurred due to procedural violations. Specifically, one can explain this by saying that the hearings were scheduled at an inconvenient time for the suspects, or their explanations were heard improperly.
The matter concerns judges of the Kyiv Court of Appeal who allegedly took more than 100 thousand dollars. Despite being caught red-handed while receiving 35 thousand dollars in bribes, the higher court found violations of the procedure in bringing them to responsibility.
Those Kyiv Court of Appeal judges passed money to each other in packages wrapped with whisky and coffee,
— Shabunin clarified.
Thus, this case showed that in Ukraine there are likely high corruption risks in the judicial system, where defending the interests of officials in robes often prevails over the principle of inevitability of punishment. It also stalls Ukraine’s international obligations regarding judicial reform.
Fuel
Average prices at the Amic Energy gas station chain as of
What preceded it
The prosecutor shared interesting details when one of the defendants’ case was heard. In his apartment, allegedly, 115 thousand dollars were found, simply in coffee-packaging. The suspects were also disguising themselves, which was noticeable when, during a meeting, one of them approached a cabinet and handed a colleague exactly a coffee bag with the words: “Very good coffee, soluble, you once gave me some, so I’m giving you some now.”
The defendant himself said that not all the found money was in his possession, only 50 thousand. The rest supposedly belonged to his children, sister, and wife.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Судді "захищають" хабарників: у Центрі протидії корупції розповіли про резонансне рішення". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Channel 24.
