A judge from Kharkov is being investigated because of a conversation about the destruction of evidence

The High Council of Justice opened a disciplinary case against the judge of the Kharkov District Administrative Court Elena Zaichko due to the fact that the judge could falsify the decision so that the Kharkov businesswoman would not pay 7.5 million hryvnia in taxes. The judge could face dismissal.

In February 2024, the First Disciplinary Chamber of the High Council of Justice (HRC) opened a disciplinary case against the judge of the Kharkov District Administrative Court Elena Zaichko.

DEJURE Foundation lawyer Elizaveta Karachentseva complained about Elena Zaichko. We are talking about a telephone conversation between Judge Zaichko and a woman named Lena, who, according to the recording, is her colleague. On the recordings that the journalists obtained at their own disposal, one can hear that the women are discussing the possibility of ruining the disc contained in the materials and are looking for ways to change the “cherished” court decision to the opposite.

The court registry helped to understand what cherished matter the women were talking about. Journalists found an interesting solution in it - about correcting a typo signed by Zaichko. This document is dated August 14, 2020, that is, the day after the conversation. According to the ruling, Judge Zaichko changed the original court decision of August 13, 2020: instead of “refusing”, as was the original decision, she granted the claim.

The examined documents and listened to audio recordings indicate that at first Judge Zaichko did not satisfy the claim of the Kharkov businesswoman, and then realized that she had done something wrong and quickly revised the decision, which, in fact, wrote off her debt of almost 7.5 million hryvnia

A lawyer from DEJURE believes that the materials published by journalists indicate a violation by the judge of procedural legislation on the procedure for recording a court hearing by technical means.