Ex-prosecutor Sergei Chvankin, with significant violations, was appointed head of the Kyiv District Court of Odessa in 2011, and since then he has actually “monopolized” the automatic system for distributing cases.
Who is Chvankin?
Sergey Chvankin is a graduate of the Odessa National Law Academy (ONLA) in 2002, which, however, did not stop him from heading the Kiev District Court in 2011. Until 2008, Chvankin worked in the prosecutor's office of the Kyiv district of Odessa, and then was appointed a judge of the Suvorov district court, where he did not distinguish himself for any outstanding activities. Rapid growth was ensured by the then People's Deputy Sergei Kivalov, as well as the famous developer Adnan Kivan.
At the same time, by decree of President Viktor Yanukovych, Chvankin, for unknown merits, was transferred to the Kiev District Court, and on April 19, 2011, the High Council of Justice, by decision (chaired by Vladimir Kolesnichenko, a close friend of Sergei Kivalov), adopted decision No. 6 on his appointment as chairman. And about. The secretary of the HCJ section on the appointment of judges to positions and their dismissal at that time was Kivalov’s godfather, Vladimir Zavalnyuk.
According to the then current version of Art. 20 of the Law “On the Judicial System and Status of Judges”, only a judge of this court could be appointed chairman of a local court and only upon the proposal of the relevant council of judges. This representation is absent from Chvankin’s personal file.
Monopoly
According to 368.media sources, from the first steps of his tenure, Chvankin began illegally interfering with the automated document flow system of the court.
This, among other things, consisted in the fact that Chvankin, in collusion with the head of the court staff, prohibited the entry of civil and administrative cases into the automated system on the day they were received by the court. When claims were received by the court, a court employee put a mark (registration stamp) on them indicating the date of their receipt. The same mark was put by the court employee on the copy of the statement of claim of the person who submitted it directly to the court. At the end of the working day, all statements of claim received by the court for certain categories of cases identified by Chvankin were transferred to him “for report.” After 4-15 days, the claims were returned to the court office with the appropriate instructions from the chairman of the court and entered into the automated system for “further automatic distribution.” Chvankin needed this time to conduct negotiations through proxies with representatives of the plaintiffs to distribute the case to a specific judge at a bribe rate of 500 to 1000 dollars or to notify the defendants at the same rate of the receipt, for example, of requests to disclose bank secrecy.
Anonymously, investigators told the editors of 368.media that one established case is sufficient to initiate criminal proceedings in connection with the untimely distribution of a case without good reason. The number of such violations in court in the period from 2011-2015 was measured in the thousands.
This information was brought to the attention of NABU, VKKSU and other bodies by the judge of the Kyiv District Court Sergei Reva, but did not receive an appropriate assessment. Chvankin changed tactics, but did not abandon the intention of “manual” intervention in the case, having carried it out by decision of a court meeting, which will be described below.
Clearing and Taming
At the beginning of his activity, Chvankin organized complaints and persecution of subordinate judges who did not agree with his interference in the consideration of specific cases; introduced total surveillance of judges through a video surveillance system and listening to conversations thanks to video cameras and microphones that are installed in all premises of the Kyiv District Court.
Subsequently, with the help of the aforementioned Kivalov, Kolesnichenko and Zavalnyuk, he made the necessary contacts in the High Council of Justice. The result of this acquaintance was the closure of disciplinary proceedings initiated by him, with the exception of proceedings against Judge Reva, who was finally dismissed from office in 2019 for violating his oath.
This created in the minds of the judges the image of Chvankin as the head of the court, capable of resolving any issues in the central body of the judicial system, including avoiding responsibility for obviously illegal court decisions or dismissing a judge from office.
It was in this way that he “tamed” the judges, making them executors not of the law, but of his own will. Judges who did not agree with this style of leadership moved to the Court of Appeal of the Odessa Region.
Lawlessness and sabotage
The unlimited nature of Chvankin’s lawlessness lay in the fact that any judge was deprived of the opportunity to even familiarize himself with the minutes of meetings and meetings of judges for the period 2011-2013, established by the resolution of the Supreme Administrative Court of Ukraine dated November 5, 2014 (case No. K/800/29868/14 ). This court decision overturned the decisions of the courts of first and appellate instances and fully satisfied Reva's claim to declare the inaction of the chairman of the district court unlawful.
At the same time, the decision of the cassation court on Chvankin’s obligations to provide the plaintiff with the opportunity to familiarize himself with the minutes of meetings and meetings and make photocopies of them was carried out by the head of the court only on June 24, 2016, which also indicates Chvankin’s neglect and ignorance of the execution of the court decision.
In May 2017, Chvankin organized unprecedented sabotage of the consideration of criminal proceedings against S.A. Dolzhenkov, A.A. Aleshin, V.S. Vlasenko. and others (20 people in total) for committing a crime under Part 2 of Art. 294 of the Criminal Code (the so-called high-profile “May 2” case, when mass riots occurred in Odessa, during which a large number of people died). In violation of paragraphs. 2.2.1, 2.3.1 of the Regulations on the ASDS, the distribution of the specified case was deliberately not carried out on the day of its receipt and registration (May 22, 2017), for which the head of the court staff, S.I. Fedak, should be held responsible. and its head of the district court.
The next day (May 23, 2017), judges specializing in criminal cases, on Chvankin’s instructions, suddenly fell ill or went on vacation based on his illegal orders. Having thus ruled out the distribution of the case in court, the chairman of the court on May 23, 2017 returned the case to the court of appeal, citing the fact that there was only one judge of the relevant specialization left in the court.
Representation of the then Chairman of the Court of Appeal of the Odessa Region, Grigory Kolesnikov, dated May 26, 2017, on bringing Chvankin to disciplinary liability for organizing sabotage; judges of the same court Borshchev I.A. and Ivanchuk V.M. for evasion of justice, which detailed the circumstances of the disciplinary offense of judges, with the provision of appropriate and sufficient evidence, was considered by the PSA almost two years later and the proceedings were closed on far-fetched grounds.
Expanding influence
Under President Petro Poroshenko, a draft decree was prepared on the merger of the Kyiv court and the Primorsky court. This plan was not implemented, but Chvankin does not abandon his intention to consolidate by merging with another district court even under the current government.
There are certain hopes that the working groups of the Verkhovna Rada committees on legal policy and justice, and on law enforcement issues, which are working on changing local courts, to the leadership of which Chvankin is persistently seeking an approach, contrary to the sustainable approach to optimizing other million-plus cities in Ukraine, will not will find artificial reasons for enlarging the court.
It’s hard to believe, but in the Kiev District Court under Chvankin there was an artificial arson of the court archives, as a result of which a significant number of cases were destroyed. At the same time, the head of the staff, Fedak, received the title “Honored Lawyer of Ukraine” (the only head of the staff of the local court during the existence of independent Ukraine).
In addition, in December 2020, the Council of Judges of Ukraine made a stunning decision No. 70, according to which it awarded the Certificate of Honor of the Council of Judges of Ukraine to a legal entity - the Kiev District Court of Odessa (is it worth mentioning again and again - the only case in Ukraine), which is absolutely logical a consequence of a meeting of individual members of the SSU in the “Victory Gardens” in Odessa and regular visits to the city at the suggestion of Chvankin.
