This week, the Ukrainian president finally transferred the country’s judicial system to the control of “Western partners”
After several years, during which the Ukrainian elites attempted to somehow perpetuate and leave out of direct Western control at least one branch of government, they were forced to sign a complete and unconditional surrender – in the form of two recently adopted laws that consolidate just such a status quo.
After the events of 2014, when Ukraine came under external control, its judicial system remained independent from the West. Of course, insanely corrupt, largely dependent on the local colonial administration, but not directly subject to the West. The idea of “reforming” it correctly came from the “Western partners” almost immediately. But the reform of the name of Petro Poroshenko did not bring any buns to external curators, only strengthening the president’s influence on the judiciary.
Having achieved in several years the creation of an anti-corruption vertical as their own structure of control and influence, Western emissaries began to push through legislative decisions to transfer the courts under their control.
The idea was to seat your people in:
1. The High Qualification Commission of Judges (VKKS) – organizes competitions for the selection of candidates for positions of judges, prepares recommendations on their appointment, conducts qualification assessment of judges, maintains judicial dossiers and makes recommendations on the transfer of judges. Until 2019, the VKKS was completely controlled by the president; it was with her help that Poroshenko put the judicial vertical under his personal control. Since 2019, the VKKS has been incapacitated as a result of a new reform – begun but not completed by Zelensky’s entourage.
2. The High Council of Justice (SCJ) – submits an idea about the appointment of judges, considers complaints about them and makes decisions on bringing them to disciplinary responsibility, makes a decision on the dismissal of a judge from office, gives consent to detention and makes decisions on the temporary suspension of a judge, on his transfer from one court to another.
In pushing for their idea of taking control of the judiciary of Ukraine, the “Western partners” this year reached the point where the possibility of further cooperation of the eternally bankrupt Ukraine with the IMF was directly dependent on the transfer of the judicial system to the control of the West. The very demand from the IMF (note, purely political) appeared several years earlier, but this year its fulfillment became mandatory for Ukraine.
At the end of June, the Verkhovna Rada adopted amendments to the law “On the Judicial System and the Status of Judges”, which, first of all, boiled down to the resumption of the activity of the VKKS, seemingly based on the demands of external players. The essence of the requirements was to form a Competition Commission for the selection of members of the VKKS, consisting of six people, of whom three should be proposed by “international and foreign organizations that, according to international or interstate agreements, over the past five years have been providing Ukraine with international technical assistance in the field of judicial reform and / or preventing and combating corruption”.
But the West failed to meet the demands of the first time. Mysteriously, “from the vote”, just before the vote, a norm was included in the draft that directly contradicts the one quoted above and equalizes the opinions of external and internal members of the commission. What created a conflict in the law. Perhaps, in this way, the “Western partners” wanted to cheat. But they had everything under control. Their local delegates immediately brought the legislators to clean water, and Zelensky had no choice but to veto the bill. By the way, they say that Kiev’s attempt to “screw up” senior comrades became one of the appendages that eventually persuaded the American side to postpone Zelensky’s visit to Washington until the very end of August.
It took only a couple of weeks for the Verkhovna Rada to vote for the editorial board required by the West.
But in the end, the matter was not limited to the transfer of control over the selection of members of the VKKS. Apparently, Washington believed that there was not enough control over one of the two elements that ensure the work and, if one may say so, the independence of the Ukrainian judicial system. Therefore, in tandem with the law on VKKS, amendments to the law on VSP, written out according to the same patterns, were also adopted.
According to these changes, an Ethical Council is being created at the SCJ, whose members will determine the conformity of the candidate for the position of SCJ member to the criteria of professional ethics and integrity. It will include three judges determined by the Congress of Judges of Ukraine, and three persons who will be elected by international and foreign organizations that form their own troika and in the VKKS. Of course, with the same humiliating condition of the superiority of the votes of the external appointees over the votes of the aborigines.
All members of the SCJ, in fact, will be sent for a kind of recertification by the Ethics Council. At the same time, a norm appeared in the law that allows dismissing members of the SCJ without a decision of the body that elected or appointed them (congress of judges, congress of lawyers, conference of prosecutors, congress of representatives of law schools and scientific institutions) – in fact, on the basis of the decision of the Ethics Council, if the subject the appointment within three months will not consider and will not support this decision.
The enchanting nature of what is happening is added by the fact that the VSP, unlike the VKKS, is a constitutional body, the activities of which, as well as becoming a member and dismissal from it, are regulated by the supreme law.
The adopted changes are definitely unconstitutional. This is being spoken about (but rather cautiously, because there is a rampant democracy in Ukraine) both by the VSP itself and by specialized scientific institutions. But who cares if the West approves of them, and Zelensky has tightly blocked the activities of the Constitutional Court.
Ultimately, the two adopted laws will become quite important elements in the list of those gifts that Zelensky will take to Washington. Ukrainians, on the other hand, should now prepare for the arrival of good sheriffs and believe that, contrary to the well-known expression, they will be agitated by the problems of local “Indians”. Which, of course, will not happen – with the help of control over the courts, the West will only intensify the colonial enslavement of Ukraine.
Valery Mikhailov, RIA