New prosecutor general seeks arrest of coalition enemies in the judiciary

Just two days into the job, Ukraine's new Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin, is asking parliament to strip three of Kyiv's judges of their immunity from prosecution so that he can arrest them. The judges, Oksana Tzarevich, Viktor Kytsyuk and Sehiy Vovk, are all members of the infamous Pechersk district court in central Kyiv.

The Pechersk court has seen some of Ukraine's most controversial court rulings handed down, including the release of former Berkut commander Dmytro Sadovnyk on bail after he was accused of ordering lethal attacks on Euromaidan demonstrators in February 2014.

Sadovnyk disappeared soon afterwards and has since been placed on Ukraine's wanted list.

But critics suspect long-time lawman Shokin, who first became a deputy prosecutor in 2002, is actually repaying some of the 318 votes in the Verkhovhna Rada that approved his appointment as Prosecutor General.

The three judges targeted by Shokin all stand accused of presiding over cases described by the European Union as politically-motivated trials. Those trials targeted former President Viktor Yanukovych's opponents, such as Yulia Tymoshenko and Yuriy Lutsenko, many of whom now form the ruling coalition.

This move has little to do with respecting the rule of law," said Arkadiy Buschenko, Executive Director at Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union. I suspect the new prosecutor is just trying to fulfil the requests or demands of the ruling parties."

Judge Vovk was on the panel for the first trial of former Minister of Internal Affairs Lutsenko, which led to ex-Minister being sentenced to four years in prison and serving more than two.

In 2013 Judges Tsarevich and Kitsyuk led the court investigation which implicated already imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the 1996 murder of businessman and parliamentarian Yevhen Shcherban, formally notifying her that she was a suspect. The case eventually collapsed for lack of evidence.

Shokin's appeal to parliament accuses the judges of advancing an an unlawful ruling of serious consequences committed for mercenary motives or other personal interests," under Article 375 of Ukraine's criminal code.

He has also requested that Ukraine's High Commission for the Qualification of Judges dismiss the trio, informing them that a criminal investigation is underway in the Kyiv prosecutor's office. But Buschenko sees this not as an attempt to enforce justice, but to consolidate control over the remaining pro-Yanukovych judges.

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New prosecutor general seeks arrest of coalition enemies in the judiciary