While Ukrainians are donating to drones, sitting without electricity and paying more and more for utilities, judges of one of the most odious courts in the country — the liquidated OASC — are quietly and confidently receiving millions from the budget. Over the past two years, while everyone seems to have forgotten about this court, its judges have received 157 million hryvnias in salaries. On average, 3 million hryvnias each. During this time, the OASC itself did not make decisions, had no powers, and some of its judges even became subjects of disciplinary proceedings.
This is all from the official response of the State Judicial Administration, provided at the request of Glavkom journalists.
According to the documents, the staff of the liquidated court remained 43 judges. And even after the Verkhovna Rada voted to liquidate the OASC in December 2022, the "judicial caste" continued to receive salaries - for more than a year.
The calculation does not include payments for court staff (which is another 24 people), meaning the real costs were even higher. While Ukrainians are losing their homes and loved ones, Pavlo Vovk and company are receiving salaries that are many times higher than the incomes of even high-ranking officials.
According to a source in the High Council of Justice, disciplinary proceedings have already been opened against five former judges of the Supreme Judicial Council of Ukraine: Pavlo Grigorovich, Vitaliy Amelokhin, Volodymyr Keleberda, Marina Boyaryntseva, and Igor Pogribnichenko. It is expected that the number of defendants will increase in the next two months, and the first dismissals may take place by the summer.
However, Ukrainians have repeatedly seen how such "proceedings" drag on for years, and as a result, judges receive either minimal penalties or get away with nothing at all.
This court became a festering ulcer in the Ukrainian judicial system long before its liquidation verdict. In 2019-2020, the NABU published the so-called “Vovk tapes,” which recorded how judges decide which politicians to “wet” and how to “appoint” the leadership of the High Qualification Commission and the High Council of Justice. The court was effectively transformed into a private firm serving political and business interests.
The apotheosis of cynicism was that even before the full-scale war, the OASC took up the lawsuits of… Viktor Yanukovych! He tried to appeal his removal from the post of president and to achieve the cancellation of the early elections of 2014. Why this was needed at that time is a rhetorical question. One version is that the judges were simply stalling for time, expecting that Russian troops would capture Kyiv and it would be possible to quickly make the necessary decision in the interests of the Kremlin.
Yanukovych's lawsuits were considered until the end of April 2022, after the start of full-scale aggression. After that, the court's activities were suspended.
The maintenance of former judges of the Kyiv City Administrative Court, who are actually in a state of “neither fish nor meat,” has already cost taxpayers more than 157 million hryvnias. And this is only a part of the amount. The judges received salaries in the absence of the full functioning of the institution. At the same time, a number of them can potentially continue working in the renewed Kyiv City District Administrative Court or in other courts.
Even after the court's official liquidation, its figures remain in the game. They retain influence, connections, and, most dangerously, the lack of real punishment. Without a decisive purge and real accountability, the "wolf courts" will continue to rule from the shadows.
And Ukrainians will once again pay for their impunity.
