Changes in judge corps in the court where Tymoshenko appeal to be heard
The judges of the Kyiv Court of Appeal who in summer released from custody Anatoly Makarenko and Taras Shepitko, held in connection with the “gas case”, may be dismissed for infringement of their oath. Ukrainska Pravda has published a response from the High Council of Justice to its information request from 27 October.
The letter states that on 3 August this year the High Court of Justice received a request from the Chairperson of the Kyiv Court of Appeal, Anton Chernushenko, to consider whether legislation was breached by three judges of the court. The three judges examined an application to change the restraint measure against Makarenko and Shepitka and decided to release them from custody.
In an extensive article in Ukrainska Pravda entitled “Yanukovych chooses between Tymoshenko and Europe”, Serhiy Leshchenko also asserts that at the beginning of October 2011 the makeup of the group of judges responsible for the Pechersky District was changed. These are, of course, the judges who will examine appeals against sentences handed down by judges from the Pechersky District Court , including the verdict in the Tymoshenko trial from 11 October.
Leshchenko writes that according to Ukrainska Pravda sources, there are now eight judges answering for the Pechersky District. Six do not have experience of appeals having only been transferred to the Court of Appeal from district courts in the capital in Spring of this year. One other judge was transferred in 2010, and only one has worked in appeal courts since 1998.
The appeal against Yulia Tymoshenko’s verdict, handed down by Rodion Kireyev from the Pechersky District Court, is due to be heard in the Kyiv Court of Appeal in December.
Picture from Dzerkalo Tyzhnya