High Council of Justice suspends Odesa judge Kichmarenko from work

Judge Serhiy Kichmarenko of the Prymorskyi District Court of Odesa has been temporarily suspended from administering justice.

According to the High Council of Justice, this decision was made by the First Disciplinary Chamber on July 7.

"If the body that considers cases of disciplinary liability of judges decides to impose a disciplinary sanction on a judge in the form of a motion to dismiss the judge from office, such a judge is automatically temporarily suspended from the administration of justice until the decision on his or her dismissal is made by the High Council of Justice. Judges are considered to be temporarily suspended from the administration of justice without a separate decision by the High Council of Justice," the HCJ explained.

The suspension of judges from the administration of justice is valid until the High Council of Justice decides to dismiss them from office or reverse the decision of the Disciplinary Chamber.

This is a case opened against a judge based on a complaint filed by the Odesa Regional Prosecutor's Office. In June 2024, the High Council of Justice opened disciplinary cases against two judges of the Prymorskyi District Court of Odesa, Serhii Kichmarenko and Ilya Lonskyi. At that time, the Odesa Regional Prosecutor's Office complained about Serhii Kichmarenko.

The complaint alleged that the judge did not respect prosecutors and cited several examples of judicial disrespect. For example, during the court hearing on June 26, 2020, when the prosecution was presenting evidence, Judge Kichmarenko, being well aware that the amount of written evidence and documents was quite significant (about 300 volumes) and that it was impossible to have all such materials in court at the same time, repeatedly expressed his position on which evidence the prosecution should submit and which the court was not interested in.

In the complainant's opinion, these actions of the court clearly went beyond the scope of managing the trial, and the judge's statements made in court violated the principles of adversarialism, dispositivity and showed disrespect for prosecutors, which is to prevent the prosecution from freely and independently defending its legal position.

Кирило Бойко