Not everyone came up – Kommersant

The High Qualifications Board of Judges (HQJC) on Wednesday began selecting candidates for the positions of judges of arbitration courts and courts of general jurisdiction in new regions. The process is not without losses. Although the judges who worked at the time of joining Russia in these territories have a preferential right to fill their posts, not all of them received recommendations for reappointment. The contestants had to answer questions about relatives living abroad, the origin of property and fines for traffic violations.

The procedure for selecting candidates for the initial composition of the courts of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, is established by special laws, and the judges in force at the time of accession receive a preferential right to fill their own positions – of course, provided that they comply with established requirements. As the competition showed, not all of them managed to fit into the Russian criteria.

So, the recommendation for the post of chairman of the Supreme Court (SC) of the DPR could not be received by its current (however, only since April) head and former Minister of Justice of the republic, Yuri Sirovatko. He told the members of the HQCC with inspiration that “the situation in the region is difficult, but rising”: 90% of the premises of the court are not heated, only six out of 32 official cars are on the move, and judges drive ZILs to work, the shortage of staff is about 70% (146 people are fighting, four were buried, 22 were wounded, and one is captured), and the salary for the next month is not even “mortgaged”. In addition, DPR judges will have to retrain: they will need support, video lessons and internships. But if he was appointed, Mr. Sirovatko assured, everything could be overcome.

However, the members of the VKKS were more interested in the extensive list of real estate declared by the chairman of the DPR Supreme Council. “Such a quantity of property cannot but be embarrassing,” explained Vasily Tarasov, deputy chairman of the VKKS and chairman of the Voronezh Regional Court. Yuri Sirovatko assured the audience that most of the real estate is the merit of his wife, who has been an entrepreneur for more than 20 years and is one of the founders of a number of companies. He himself never mixed work with business, the chairman of the DPR Supreme Court assured, but apparently he could not convince the board of this. The recommendation was also denied to Oksana Zaritskaya, the judge of the DPR Supreme Court.

As a result, Nikolai Podkopaev, Chairman of the First Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction (located in Saratov), ​​received approval for this leadership position. There were only questions to him about the increased credit obligations assumed and whether the future, not the highest salary, would allow them to be repaid. Mr. Podkopaev admitted that he got into debt by purchasing two apartments: one for his son, the other “for himself for the future”, and assured that the expected decrease in income (by only 15 thousand rubles) would not affect the repayment of loans.

There was only one candidate for the position of chairman of the LNR Supreme Council – the current leader Svetlana Trifanova, who received a recommendation for this position without any questions.

A judge from the Crimea, Alexander Tsvetkov, has been recommended as chairman of the Kherson Regional Court (now he heads the Leninsky District Court of the republic). When considering, the collegium noted his “not very good performance” for 2021 and the data on bringing relatives to administrative responsibility not recorded in the questionnaire. The indicators are “in principle working”, although his decisions did not always coincide with the position of higher authorities, but as for fines, what data the police presented to him, he indicated in the questionnaire, Mr. Tsvetkov replied.

Two candidates were recommended for the post of Chairman of the Zaporozhye Regional Court at once – Deputy Chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court Vladimir Polukhin and Chairman of the Judiciary of the Arbitration Court of Sevastopol Roman Razhkov. The second, however, members of the commission asked why he was asking to work in a court of general jurisdiction, and not in arbitration. The candidate explained that he was “recommended” when he “wanted to participate in a historic event.”

The selection for the posts of deputy chairmen of regional courts turned out to be even tougher. Of the seven applicants for the positions of three deputy chairmen of the DPR Supreme Court, only two received recommendations: Judge of the First Cassation Victoria Filatova, who presented positive references from her current and, apparently, future boss, Mr. Podkopaev, and the current deputy chairman of the DPR Armed Forces, chairman of the Collegium for Criminal Cases Dmitry Eremin . Judge from the First Cassation Vladislav Vanin and Judge of the DPR Supreme Court Anatoly Skripnik withdrew their candidacies before the meeting of the HQCJ. The deputy chairman of the DPR Supreme Court Olga Barsukova, the judge of the same court Natalya Spasova (her daughter received a Polish passport and lives in France), as well as the representative of the Leninsky District Court of Astrakhan Alexander Sukachev did not receive recommendations.

Not recommended for reappointment, despite the positive characteristics, and Deputy Chairman of the Armed Forces of the LPR Roman Tverdokhlebov, who was the only contender for this position. He was involved in an accident in which he hit a pedestrian. And although the Ministry of Internal Affairs refused to initiate a criminal case due to the judge’s lack of technical ability to prevent the collision, the material was forwarded to the Investigative Committee, which has not yet made a final decision. “Naturally, the collegium cannot make a decision until the resolution of that case,” summed up the chairman of the All-Russian Supreme Court of Control, Nikolai Timoshin.

The judge of the Pskov city court, Inna Bondarenko, was also unlucky, who admitted that she was applying for the position of deputy chairman of the Kherson regional court solely because of her personal relationship to the special military operation. “I want the new regions to have a peaceful sky over their heads,” she said, convincing that her experience and knowledge would definitely come in handy. But VKKS did not support her impulse.

Recommendations for the positions of chairmen of the arbitration courts of the DPR and LPR were received by their former chairmen, but the judge of the court for intellectual property rights Alexander Snegur was recommended for the post of head of the Kherson Region Arbitration Court. Vladimir Ustyuzhaninov, Chairman of the Second Arbitration Court of Appeal (Kirov), received a recommendation for the position of Chairman of the Arbitration Court of the Zaporozhye Region from the HQCC.

Anastasia Kornya