Rada allows arrest of three Kyiv judges accused of unlawful rulings

The Verkhovna Rada has agreed to the arrest of three judges of Kyiv's Pechersky District Court, Serhiy Vovk, Viktor Kitsiuk and Oksana Tsarevych.

The decision was made by the Rada on Wednesday after the arrests of Kitsiuk, Tsarevych and Vovk were favored by 289, 286 and 296 deputies, respectively.

President of Ukraine's Supreme Court Yaroslav Romaniuk told Rada that Kitsiuk and Tsarevych are suspected of knowingly making an unlawful judgment out of personal interest. According to Romaniuk, the judges ruled against participants of the so-called Automaidan by stripping them of driving licenses for six months.

According to a filing by Ukraine's Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, these rulings were accepted without due reason, the Supreme Court president said.

He added that he supports the prosecutor general's request to arrest Vovk, suspected of "knowingly issuing an unlawful ruling motivated by personal interest," Romaniuk added.

Since the judges failed to show up for questioning, the prosecutor general asked for them to be apprehended, he said.

"In accordance with the filings, the case contains sufficient grounds to suspect the judges of wrongdoing," the Supreme Court president said.

This is not an indictment, he stressed. "Actually, to prove or dispel any suspicion, one needs to carry out a set of investigative procedures with the suspected judges who have been avoiding such procedures," Romaniuk said.

"This became a ground for raising the issue of obtaining (parliamentary) consent to the investigative procedures and arrest with the aim to bring them before law enforcement bodies," Romaniuk said.

Tsarevych, Kitsiuk and Vovk served at various stages as judges in the trial of the former Ukrainian interior minister, Yuriy Lutsenko.

Tsarevych and Kitsiuk also heard the case over the murder of parliamentarian Yevhen Scherban, in which the ex-prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, was the accused.