Case description
On August 10, 2022, the HACC found Judge Serhii Laziuk of the Dzerzhynskyi District Court of Kharkiv guilty of extorting bribes for rulings in civil cases. He was imprisoned for 7 years.
In 2015–2016, Judge Laziuk demanded UAH 75,000 in bribes in a debt collection case. He also demanded a USD 1,000 bribe and received USD 800 in a case of eviction from an apartment. Subsequently, the HACC consolidated the two cases into one.
The criminal proceedings in this episode were opened in March 2015. Investigators of especially important cases of the Prosecutor General's Office were working on it, but no crime was found, and the proceedings were closed. The SAPO overturned the decision to close the case, but then-Prosecutor General Lutsenko responded by reversing the SAPO's decision. Finally, in October 2016, the NABU-SAPO launched an investigation into the circumstances of Laziuk's crime.
The HACC qualified Laziuk's actions under Article 368, part 3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and sentenced him to 7 years of imprisonment with confiscation of property and the deprivation of the right to hold the position of a judge for 3 years.
Judge Laziuk is known for ruling on the administrative punishment of Kharkiv Euromaidan activists. He also recognized the decision of the Kharkiv City Council on the special status of the Russian language as legal.
