Ukraine Chief Justice, Who Was A Guest at SCOTUS Last Month, Charged With Accepting $1.8 Million Bribe


When the Supreme Courtroom hosts international dignitaries, the Chief Justice will usually acknowledge these company and prolong a welcome on behalf of the Courtroom. (Dignitaries are normally seated within the first row of the general public part, proper behind the “bar.”). I attended oral argument on April 24. On the outset of the session, Chief Justice Roberts introduced that the Chief Justice of the Ukraine Supreme Courtroom was in attendance, and welcomed him to the Courtroom. On the time, I used to be honored by the jurist’s presence. It’s troublesome to fathom methods to handle a justice system whereas your nation is at struggle. (Our nation had combined outcomes with struggle on the homefront, see Merryman and McCardle). And regardless of the entire difficulties again residence, he nonetheless discovered the time to return to the US. I hoped his go to would supply some help for the rule of legislation again in Ukraine. Chief Justice Roberts then moved onto bar admissions, and I filed the Ukrainian Chief Justice’s go to in my reminiscence banks.

This night, the NY Occasions reported that Chief Justice Vsevolod Knyazev was arrested on fees of accepting a bribe.

The chief of Ukraine’s Supreme Courtroom was formally arrested Thursday, as prosecutors indicated in a second day of hearings {that a} high-level corruption case was increasing to incorporate a wider circle of judges.

Prosecutors additionally accused a lawyer of appearing as an middleman in paying a bribe to the chief justice, and mentioned that not less than three different judges of the court docket had been discovered holding 1000’s of {dollars} in foreign money marked by investigators.

The chief justice, Vsevolod Knyazev, was apprehended simply after midnight Tuesday by officers of the Nationwide Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine, who searched his residence and workplace in simultaneous raids and mentioned they discovered giant sums of money in U.S. foreign money.

In movies of court docket hearings Wednesday and Thursday, posted on the Excessive Anti-Corruption Courtroom’s YouTube channel, Mr. Knyazev appeared within the courtroom carrying a shiny blue sweater and flanked by his legal professionals. The Excessive Council of Justice on Thursday lifted his immunity from prosecution, opening the best way for his formal arrest.

Mr. Knyazev has been charged with graft in a public workplace, and accused of accepting a bribe of $1.8 million to affect a case in favor of a Ukrainian oligarch, Kostyantyn Zhevago. A prosecutor mentioned Mr. Knyazev had despatched a message to the lawyer in early Could to separate the cash into not less than 14 separate luggage, and later despatched a message saying he had handed the cash to different judges.

The Anti-Corruption Courtroom’s prosecutor, Oleksandr Omelchenko, informed the court docket that officers had tracked the cost of the primary tranche of the bribe on Could 3, and raided Mr. Knyazev’s residence half an hour after a second tranche was handed over on Monday night.

The anti-corruption bureau had infiltrated the group making the bribe and marked the notes used within the cost. Officers found $1.8 million in money at Mr. Knyazev’s residence and workplace, however the prosecutor mentioned that not all of the bribe cash, totaling $2.7 million, had been recovered.

Barely every week after Knyazev was greeted so warmly by Chief Justice Roberts, he was soliciting a bribe, to be divided into 14 separate luggage.

There’s concern that this incident would tarnish the notion of the Ukrainian judiciary:

The case has shocked and dismayed members of Ukraine’s judiciary. Two Supreme Courtroom judges in interviews lamented the injury to the status of the court docket and the judiciary. They mentioned they labored by way of the night time and most of Tuesday to organize a poll wherein 140 of the 142 Supreme Courtroom judges voted to take away Mr. Knyazev from his publish. The 2 judges spoke on situation of anonymity, due to their place as members of the court docket.

Knyazev additionally met with Legal professional Basic Garland on his journey.

I am certain readers will attempt to make some smarmy connection between Knyazev and the US Supreme Courtroom’s legitimacy. I will not. I’m grateful that our federal judges have integrity and honesty, and these kinds of allegations can be unthinkable.