Squeeze kindergarten and pass certification: Life hacks of judge Mikhail Romanyuk

It seems that they are actively trying to bury the judicial reform that Western partners insist on.

Recently, the Supreme Court decided that 180 judges previously “rejected” by the Public Integrity Council can return to the system. Let me briefly explain: according to the law “On the Judicial System and Status of Judges,” the qualification assessment of judges is carried out by the High Qualifications Commission of Judges (HQJC).

To overcome the OSD's conclusion about the judge's dishonesty, the support of 11 members of the HQCC is needed. But according to the latest decision of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, now 9 votes of members of the OSD are needed, and for current judges with a finding of dishonesty - two votes altogether.

Can you imagine what a “lafa” it is for those judges who were previously recognized as dishonest? The worst thing is that this decision completely neutralizes the public’s influence on the judicial system. However, there are judges whose OSD findings were already negative, but they remained in the system. And at all costs they try to stay in it.

Thus, according to sources in the Higher Qualification Court, a Lviv judge, a certain Mikhail Romanyuk, plans to undergo recertification in the near future. At the moment, there is no information about this in the announcements of meetings on the official website of the VKKS, but, according to our information, it will appear soon.

Romanyuk is a unique character, model-typical. As the Prosud project and other media write, his name appears in the case of squeezing a kindergarten from the community.

In 2018, the Public Integrity Council gave a negative opinion on this judge. In 2019, during the evaluation of Romanyuk, one of the members of the VKKS, Andrei Kozlov, expressed a dissenting opinion regarding Romanyuk, and even wrote a post on Facebook, where he described the scheme for squeezing out the kindergarten by the Romanyuk family. It turns out that Mikhail’s father, Feodosiy Romanyuk, according to the judge’s declaration, gave his son 7.5 million UAH, not his own, but borrowed from a third party. Then the judge’s wife, Elena Romanyuk, lent the NGO “Mission of Good” 7.2 million UAH. A year later, the organization was liquidated, and as “compensation” for the unpaid debt, the NGO transferred to the judge’s family a kindergarten of 467 sq.m., which was leased by the organization.

However, in 2019, the VKKS did not pay attention to the obvious signs of “schematism” in this transaction, although investigators spoke about this, and allowed Mikhail Romanyuk to successfully pass the assessment and continue working. And Andrei Kozlov, who just drew attention to the obvious “schematism,” was fired from the OSD. It seems that this time Romanyuk will be able to undergo re-certification - given the scandalous decision of the Supreme Court, it will be even easier for him to do this.

The most interesting thing is that Romanyuk has a strong and friendly family behind him, always ready to support him in any situation. This is what I called the “model” case.

There is a whole judicial dynasty in the Lviv region. Thus, Romanyuk’s wife Elena is the secretary of court hearings. Brother Victor is a judge of the Galitsky District Court of Lvov. In 2018, his qualifying assessment was suspended due to unreliable information in the declaration of family ties: he did not indicate his wife, who, in turn, worked in the Yavorovsky District Court. The Supreme Court opened a disciplinary case. Romanyuk’s father-in-law is not far behind, the ex-chairman of the Sikhovsky District Court of Lvov, Sergei Lesnoy, who was accused of trying to squeeze out an apartment building on the street.

As we see, the judicial mafia has not gone away, and judicial reform has no prospects. While there are decisions of the Supreme Court that limit the influence of the public on the judiciary, and while the Higher Qualification Court tolerates the retention of judicial robes by such characters as Mikhail Romanyuk.