The GPU insists on considering the case of Sergei Vovk

Yesterday, the Supreme Court (SC) provided the Prosecutor General's Office with another opportunity to prove the legality of initiating a criminal case against the judge of the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv Sergei Vovk, known for convicting former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko. Political associates of Mr. Lutsenko believe that the authorities will maintain the possibility of bringing Sergei Vovk to court until he delivers guilty verdicts in all the political cases he has pending.

The petition of the General Prosecutor's Office (GPU) on the legality of initiating a criminal case against the judge of the Pechersky District Court Sergei Vovk was submitted to the Judicial Chamber for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court back in April 2010. As an exceptional proceeding, the GPU asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its position on the decisions of the Kyiv Court of Appeal, as well as the Goloseevsky District Court of the capital, which in 2009 satisfied the complaint of Sergei Vovk to close the criminal case against him.

The case against Sergei Vovk was initiated by the Kyiv prosecutor's office in June 2009 under Part 1 of Art. 375 of the Criminal Code (“the issuance by a judge of a deliberately unjust sentence, decision, ruling or resolution”; punishable by imprisonment for up to 5 years). Mr. Vovk was suspected of making deliberately unfair decisions when considering civil cases on land disputes in Odessa.

While the GPU's petition was being considered by the Supreme Court, Sergei Vovk managed to carry out a number of so-called political cases. The most high-profile of them was the trial of former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko. A panel of three judges chaired by Sergei Vovk found Yuriy Lutsenko guilty of misappropriation of state property on an especially large scale and abuse of office and sentenced him to four years in prison ( see Kommersant on February 28 ). Now the case of Sergei Vovk remains in production. O. Minister of Defense Valery Ivashchenko, accused of abuse of office in approving the reorganization plan of the state enterprise Feodosia Ship Mechanical Plant. In addition, the judge is conducting another criminal case accusing Yuriy Lutsenko of illegally extending the operational-search case against the driver of the former deputy head of the SBU, Vladimir Satsyuk, Valentin Davydenko.

Neither Sergei Vovk nor his representatives appeared at yesterday’s meeting of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court. Representative of the Prosecutor General's Office Nikolai Kurapov suggested that the court postpone the hearing "due to the need to study the fate of the civil cases" because of which a scandal erupted around Mr. Vovk. However, after consulting, the judges decided not to postpone the hearing, since the case had been with them for more than a year.

Judge-rapporteur Anatoly Skotar outlined to the Supreme Court the essence of the GPU's petition. The Prosecutor General's Office asked to cancel the court decisions of the first and appellate instances and send the case for a new trial. “The appellate court, in violation of the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Code, resorted to assessing the evidence. In fact, during the pre-investigation check, enough data was collected indicating the existence of grounds for initiating a criminal case,” said a representative of the GPU.

It took the judges about ten minutes to make a decision. “The prosecutor’s request is satisfied, these court decisions are cancelled, and the case is sent for a new trial,” announced Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court and Secretary of the Judicial Chamber Anatoly Redka. This means that now the Goloseevsky District Court of Kyiv will again have to decide whether it is legal to initiate criminal proceedings against Sergei Vovk.

People's Deputy Vladimir Aryev ("Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense") believes that "the decision of the Supreme Court confirmed that the authorities continue to keep Sergei Vovk on the hook." “By passing a sentence on the obviously innocent Lutsenko, Vovk was simply saving his own skin. They promised him that there would be no problems, but, obviously, they did not promise to drop all charges against him. So Vovk continues to be in limbo,” Mr. Aryev told Kommersant . In his opinion, the Supreme Court did not close the issue of criminal prosecution of the judge, since it still had cases pending against representatives of the opposition.

Elena Geda

The European Court of Human Rights accepted the second complaint of Yuriy Lutsenko

Yesterday, the press service of the People's Self-Defense party reported that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) accepted for consideration as a priority the complaint of the lawyers of the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko about inadequate medical care in the Lukyanovsky pre-trial detention center in Kyiv. “The document notes a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights “Prohibition of Torture,” the press service said in a statement. As you know, the ECHR previously accepted for consideration the complaint of Yuriy Lutsenko, in which he pointed out the illegality of his detention in December 2010 and subsequent arrest. A public hearing in the case is scheduled for April 17.

The second complaint from Yuriy Lutsenko’s lawyers was received by the ECHR in September 2011. Consideration of the document, according to Yuriy Lutsenko’s representative at the ECHR, lawyer Valentina Telichenko, may take about a year. “Some complaints have been waiting for years, but ours was accepted for consideration in a short time - this is its priority status,” Ms. Telichenko told Kommersant. She noted that European law classifies failure to provide or insufficient provision of medical care as torture. “There are no demands for financial compensation in the complaint. Yuriy Lutsenko wants to change the situation in Ukraine so that people in prison are not subjected to torture,” said Ms. Telichenko.

Let us remind you that Yuriy Lutsenko, sentenced by the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv to four years in prison for abuse of official position, has been held in the Lukyanovsky pre-trial detention center in Kyiv since December 27, 2010. For about six months, his lawyers unsuccessfully tried to get their client treated in a hospital, since he was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver ( see Kommersant of September 2, 2011 ).

People's Deputy Yuriy Grymchak ("Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense") noted that the decisions of the ECHR are binding in Ukraine, "but the state often ignores them." “If the court recognizes that Yuriy Lutsenko did not receive medical care in the pre-trial detention center, the authorities will have to correct this situation: for example, the Cabinet of Ministers will be obliged to provide the medical unit of the pre-trial detention center with equipment and medicine,” Mr. Grymchak told Kommersant. Olga Kurishko

Newspaper "Kommersant Ukraine" No. 35 dated 03/02/2012, page 1

Themes:

The case of Yuriy Lutsenko

Doomsday awaits the judge