High Council of Justice acquits judge from Odesa region who was accused of red tape

The High Council of Justice has refused to bring to disciplinary responsibility judge Natalia Vinska of the Dobroslav District Court of Odesa Oblast.

The decision was published by the HCJ.

According to the Law and Business publication, the complaints concerned the overly long consideration of a civil lawsuit on consumer protection and the recovery of contributions under a construction share agreement. This case was assigned to a judge in November 2017, and the final decision was made only in June 2023. During this time, 26 court hearings were scheduled, of which 12 did not take place. According to the disciplinary inspector Oleksiy Hura, the judge scheduled hearings at long intervals, which indicates that she did not take measures to consider the case in a timely manner. Therefore, he proposed to punish the judge with a severe reprimand with deprivation of the right to receive additional payments for three months on formal grounds - the presence of an outstanding penalty. After all, last year the Third Disciplinary Chamber had already imposed a reprimand on her in the form of a reprimand with deprivation of the right to receive additional payments for a month, and this decision was upheld by the HCJ.

The judge was defended by one of the applicants and the plaintiff in the civil case, who wanted to withdraw her complaint, explaining that the other applicant, her former lawyer, was trying to cover up his shortcomings in representing her interests in court. This position was supported by her representative at the Chamber meeting, who pointed out that the applicant had not authorized her former lawyer to file a complaint on her behalf. However, according to the law "On the High Council of Justice", withdrawal of complaints at this stage is impossible.

However, HCJ member Mykola Moroz, as a co-rapporteur, gave an excellent assessment of what was happening in this proceeding. In particular, he noted that N. Vinska granted more than 50 motions of the plaintiff's lawyer, including those for the discovery of evidence, and even imposed a fine on the defendant for failing to submit it to the court. In addition, the lawyer filed 12 motions to familiarize himself with the case file, which also led to postponements of the hearings.

According to Mr. Moroz, the fact that the hearings were scheduled at significant intervals was due to the heavy workload of the judge. Therefore, he stated that the judge's actions did not constitute a disciplinary offense. The majority of the Chamber members agreed with this. Maksym Saviuk and Vitalii Makhinchuk spoke against it.

Кирило Бойко