The case of lawyers Yurii Zontov and Yurii Donets is being heard anew. According to the Judicial Reporter Telegram channel, the reason is that HACC Judge Tanasevych, who considered this proceeding as part of the panel, went on maternity leave.
The defense insisted on considering the case anew, having exercised this right. Before that, since April 2022, when the case had been heard by the HACC, the written evidence and the covert investigative (research) actions had already been examined; the case was at the stage of witness interrogation. Now the trial will begin again, and the prosecutor has already read out the indictment.
The NABU suspects two lawyers—Yurii Zontov (brother of KAC ex-head Pavlo Vovk) and Yurii Donets—of inciting the liquidator of the insurance company AXE Capital to provide a USD 100,000 bribe to a judge of the Kyiv District Administrative Court.
By the way, beginning to hear the case anew is not a precedent for the HACC. Earlier, the appellate court overturned the sentence against Olena Polishchuk, a former official from the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, due to the fact that the updated panel of judges did not start hearing the case again. The judge in the panel had to be replaced because HACC judge Oleh Koliush transferred to the HQCJ.
TI Ukraine in its latest HACC monitoring report stressed the need for the parliament to address this potential problem, which may intensify after the HACC competition. To do this, in our opinion, it is necessary to determine in the law that when replacing a judge, there is no need to get the consent of the participants in criminal proceedings to continue the trial. After all, audio and video recordings of all court hearings will allow the new judge to review everything that happened in the process before forming part of the panel hearing the case.