What happened? The Verkhovna Rada adopted the bill “On the Liquidation of the Kyiv District Administrative Court and the Establishment of the Kyiv City District Administrative Court”.
Source. Yaroslav Zhelezniak, the Ukrainian MP, in Telegram.
Details. “In total, 310 and 326 MPs voted for the bills No. 5369 ‘On the liquidation of the Kyiv District Administrative Court’ and No. 5370 ‘On the Establishment of the Kyiv City District Administrative Court’.”
UPDATED: The day before, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy recommended the Parliament to adopt the documents as a whole.
The draft law “On Liquidation of the Kyiv District Administrative Court” was submitted to the Verkhovna Rada by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky in April 2021. The document was marked as urgent. Instead of KDAC, the President proposed to create the Kyiv City District Administrative Court.
The NABU suspects the head of the District Administrative Court Mr. Vovk and other judges of the KDAC – Mr. Ablov, Mr. Pohribnichenko, Mr. Keleberda, Mr. Ohurtsov, Mr. Kachur, and Mr. Sanin of corruption and attempts to seize state power. On the same day, NABU officers conducted searches in the court, after which Mr. Vovk and his deputy Yevhen Ablov were notified of suspicion.
On December 9, sanctions against the Head of the Court Pavlo Vovk were imposed in the United States. This step was taken due to extortion of bribes in exchange for interference in court cases.
It should be recalled that the Kyiv District Administrative Court has repeatedly been marked by scandalous decisions. One of the latest is the removal of the monument status from the building Flowers of Ukraine, which actually allows the developer to demolish this modernist building.
In addition, it was the KDAC that filed lawsuits to reinstate former President Yanukovych in his position. Schemes journalists believe that some KDAC judges could be involved in the kremlin's scenario with the “reinstatement"”of the former president.
Earlier, in 2014, KDAC banned the installation of tents on Independence Square during the Revolution of Dignity. In 2020, it ordered the Ministry of Education to “revise” the description of Euromaidan events in history textbooks. It also satisfied the claim of Andriy Portnov, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration under Yanukovych, to ban “propaganda” of the OUN and UPA.