It’s hard enough to roll the boulder of reform up the mountain of corruption.
When 18 untouchable judges can at any point push the boulder back down, forcing you to start from the beginning, it becomes impossible.
And untouchable really is the word. Recently, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine issued a statement that it’s inadmissible for authorities to suspend its judges, who are protected by the Constitution. If only the Constitution were protected from them.
The court and its judges have faced harsh public criticism since Oct. 27, when they effectively destroyed Ukraine’s entire asset declaration system for state officials, eliminating a crucial pillar of the country’s anti-corruption infrastructure.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has tried numerous ways to rein them in. On Dec. 29, he suspended the Constitutional Court chief, Oleksandr Tupytsky for two months, days after the judge was charged with bribing a witness over a decade ago.
But this hardly solves Ukraine’s constitutional crisis and only prolongs the absurd standoff between the court and the president.
Meanwhile, Tupytsky just brushed it off while frolicking in a luxury villa in the Dubai sun. He appealed to judicial independence.
Although the president does not appear to have constitutional powers to suspend Tupytsky, the court’s behavior has nothing to do with judicial independence. The Constitutional Court, a corrupt and lawless body, is just using this principle as an excuse to protect its lawlessness.
In any civilized state, the Constitutional Court should have immediately reacted to the charges against Tupytsky by suspending or firing him. Instead, the court is discrediting itself even more and undermining the remnants of any public trust in itself.
While Ukraine’s Western partners, including the Venice Commission, said that the court needs gradual reforms, they came out against its disbandment, which was proposed by Zelensky in October.
The disbandment bill is dubious from the standpoint of constitutional law, and Ukraine’s Western partners have opposed it. However, the court has become such an atrocity that gradual measures are not enough.
But what, then, can the Ukrainian government do?
One way forward would be to prosecute Tupytsky and other judges to the fullest extent of the law. Besides allegedly bribing a witness, the head judge has a whole lot of other dirty laundry in his closet. This includes land he acquired in Russian-annexed Crimea in 2018 without showing it in his asset declaration.
Convicting the corrupt judges, if their guilt is proven, would be the right remedy. But Ukraine doesn’t have the best track record with holding corrupt officials responsible and its other courts are just as unreliable at delivering justice.
