A year after the liquidation of the wolf court

On December 15, 2022, the law on the liquidation of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv came into force, which means the scandalous OASC ceased to exist.

In an ideal world, I would further describe how a new court is being formed to replace the OASC, the competition is held and which worthy candidates are taking part in it.

However, the world is not ideal, and therefore the scandalous judges of the OASC, a year after their liquidation, not only remain judges, but also continue to receive a lot of money for absolutely NOTHING!

Thus, during a year of inaction, 52 judges of the OASC cost taxpayers approximately UAH 79 million. That is, in fact, the state spends more than 6 million UAH monthly on these judges.

79 million hryvnia is a huge amount, which in difficult times for the country could have been spent on much more important things. Here is a sample list of important things that could be purchased with these funds. And this is not to mention the total underfunding of the courts and the lack of funds for paper, stamps and salaries for court employees, where this money would certainly be useful.

So perhaps there was no need to liquidate anything? - you ask. Definitely not, because another year of “activity” of the scandalous court, taking into account the decisions made by the OASC, would have cost the country much more than 79 million hryvnia.

However, let's talk about what can be done ALREADY to avoid wasting money on judges who do not hear cases.

The only solution that will stop paying exorbitant salaries to OASC judges is to dismiss them from their positions in court. There are 3 options on how to do this:

1. Higher Qualification Commission of Judges and qualification assessment.

The majority of judges of the OASC have not yet passed the qualification assessment and they must pass it in the updated HQKS. In addition, most judges already have negative conclusions from the previous composition of the Public Council of Virtue.

In the fall, the renewed High Qualification Commission of Judges began its work and more than a month ago resumed conducting qualification assessments. Now the so-called 5-year judges are going through the qualification procedure, but they also do not exercise their powers for a long time.

However, the assessment of judges of the OASC is still missing, even in the schedule of the Higher Qualification Committee - how much more taxpayer funds will go to waste depends on when it appears and how quickly the Higher Qualification Committee evaluates these judges.

2. High Council of Justice and disciplinary punishment.

Pavel Vovk, Evgeniy Ablov and a significant part of their colleagues may also be dismissed by the High Council of Justice as a result of consideration of disciplinary complaints against their decisions or behavior.

It’s been almost a month since the Supreme Court has already resumed consideration of disciplinary proceedings: weekly the boards consider complaints against various judges, for example, very soon it will be decided whether to dismiss the former head of the Supreme Court Vsevolod Knyazev, who, by the way, while in a pre-trial detention center, also continues to receive a considerable salary.

However, when the turn will come to the judges of the OASC is still unknown.

3. High Council of Justice and dismissal by court verdict.

Some of the judges of the liquidated OASC have the status of defendants in criminal proceedings. In particular, judges Vovk, Ablov, Keleberda, Kachur, Ogurtsov, Sanin and Pogribnichenko are “clients” of the High Anti-Corruption Court in the “OASC tapes” case.

If they are found guilty and the court verdict enters into legal force (that is, after the decision of the Appeal), the High Council of Justice must terminate the powers of these judges.

However, this is perhaps the longest option for solving the problem, because for more than a year the consideration of this case cannot get off the ground. Therefore, a court decision can hardly be expected next year.

Is it possible to simply stop paying salaries to judges who do not exercise their powers and do not hear cases? Unfortunately no. The Constitutional Court made sure that any salary restrictions for judges were considered unconstitutional. This means that even if a law is passed that reduces the salaries of judges who do not consider cases and actually do nothing, there is a 100% probability that the Constitutional Court will recognize it as illegal and sooner or later the judges will return all the funds not paid to them through the court. In fact, we already had a similar situation in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, when the salaries of all civil servants were limited to 43 thousand UAH per month.

I cannot fail to mention one more important nuance: until the judges are dismissed, there remains a danger - the desire of the judges to escape into honorable retirement.

For example, Evgeny Ablov has already submitted an application, but its consideration is being postponed by the Supreme Court. For information, a retired judge today on average receives more than 97 thousand UAH a month, and if Ablova or other OASC judges are sent to honorable retirement, it will be possible to stop paying such funds only after a court verdict against them (which will not happen soon).

Back in May, bill N9343 was registered to prohibit the Supreme Court from dismissing judges with high lifetime payments if there are pending disciplinary complaints against them.

However, so far there has been ZERO progress in considering this bill; it has not yet been voted on even in the first reading.

At the same time, while the deputies are delaying the adoption of the bill, judges against whom disciplinary proceedings have been opened continue to “flee” into honorable retirement.

As we see, now all the cards are in the hands of the High Qualification Commission of Judges and the High Council of Justice; it is on these two bodies that it depends how much more time we will spend more than 6 million hryvnia monthly.

Let me remind you that the OASC issue has always been called one of the “tests” that awaits the updated VSP and VKKS. However, for now both bodies continue to pretend that the problem does not exist, because the issue of the OASC not only has not begun to move, but is not even on the agenda for the near future.

I hope that all members of the reloaded VKKS and VSP understood when going to office that there was simply no time for delay, and therefore the strategy of postponing complex or sensitive issues “for later” will sooner or later turn against them.