16:25 10.06.2019

Ex-Head of Crimea Appeals Court Chernobuk released from custody – Ukraine's Crimea PGO

3 min read
Ex-Head of Crimea Appeals Court Chernobuk released from custody – Ukraine's Crimea PGO

 Kyiv's Appeals Court has changed the ruling of Kyiv's Holosiyivsky district court on extending the pretrial custody of ex-chairman of the Court of Appeals Court of Crimea Valeriy Chernobuk, who is suspected of committing state treason.

"Kyiv's Appeals Court has changed the ruling of the Holosiyivsky district court, which extended the pretrial custody of the ex-chairman of the Appeals Court of Crimea and he has been released," the Ukrainian-based Crimea Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) said on Facebook on Monday.

The position of Chernobuk's lawyers was based on the fact that he is currently a judge, because on November 29, 2018, a panel of judges of the Cassation Administrative Court within Ukraine's Supreme Court declared unlawful and canceled the resolution of parliament, dated September 29, 2016, on the dismissal of judges.

"However, in line with the law on courts and judge status, overturning the parliament's resolution on the dismissal of judges is not grounds for restoring the status of judge to someone, that is, this individual was not reinstated as a judge," the PGO's press service said.

The issue of dismissing the judge, in line with current legislation, is exclusively within the competency of the High Council of Justice.

As reported, Chernobuk was detained in Kyiv on November 3, 2018, by SBU State Security Service agents and members of Ukraine's Crimea PGO. On November 5, 2018, he was remanded in pretrial custody. The PGO says the ex-chairman of the Crimea Appeals Court assisted Russia and its representatives to switch operations of courts in Crimea to the legal system of the aggressor country. He is suspected of committing crimes under Part 1 of Article 111 (state treason) of Ukraine's Criminal Code.

After the annexation of Crimea at the end of March 2014, Chernobuk left the peninsula and went to work in Dnipro. He was included by the self-proclaimed State Council of the Republic of Crimea in the list of persons banned from entering Crimea. Later, members of parliament belonging to the Party of Regions parliamentary faction, the Economic Development and Sovereign European Ukraine groups of the parliament of the seventh convocation, were removed from the list. Chernobuk, however, remained on the list.

Chernobuk was dismissed on September 29, 2016, from the post of judge of the Court of Appeals of the Dnipropetrovsk region for violating the oath after the High Council of Justice had submitted a relevant motion to parliament. However, the PGO did not find evidence of corpus delicti under the article on treason in the statements of the judge, according to Deputy Prosecutor General Anatoly Matios, who was responding to a written request by MP Serhiy Leshchenko.

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