The High Council of Justice did not support the dismissal of judge Kateryna Vasylieva of the Sviatoshynskyi District Court of Kyiv

The High Council of Justice reviewed the materials regarding the dismissal of Kateryna Vasylieva from the position of judge of the Sviatoshynskyi District Court of Kyiv based on subparagraph 4 of paragraph 16¹ of section XV "Transitional Provisions" of the Constitution of Ukraine in accordance with the submission and recommendation of the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine. Following the review, the Council decided to leave the mentioned recommendation of the HQCJ without consideration.

Judge’s Career

By the decree of the President of Ukraine dated June 27, 2013, Kateryna Vasylieva was appointed as a judge of the Chutivskyi District Court of Poltava region for a term of five years. Already in September 2013, she was transferred to the position of judge of the Sviatoshynskyi District Court of Kyiv within the five-year term. In June 2018, her term of office as a judge expired.

Main Claims of the Public Integrity Council

The Public Integrity Council raised a number of serious concerns, including: the use of family, friendly, and other informal connections to advance her career; acquisition of property, income, or benefits whose legal origin raises reasonable doubts; failure to declare property and corporate rights; providing knowingly false or distorted information during the qualification assessment; failure to fulfill the duty to clarify the property status of family members.

The most significant violation, according to the Public Integrity Council, concerns corporate rights. In 2016, the judge’s husband issued a power of attorney to sell a 25% share in the authorized capital of the Kazakhstani LLC "Door Technologies." Vasylieva did not declare these corporate rights in the 2016 declaration under the section "Corporate Rights." Instead, in the 2018 declaration, she only indicated her husband’s salary from this company as secondary employment.

The Public Integrity Council emphasized that the judge did not take sufficient proactive measures to obtain complete information about her husband’s property interests, even after similar remarks during the previous qualification assessment in 2019.

Attention was also drawn to inconsistencies in declarations regarding the place of residence (Kharkiv — Kyiv) and the right to use an apartment in Kyiv (change of right type from "temporary residence" to "loan").

Position of the HQCJ

The Commission examined the conclusion of the Public Integrity Council, the decision of the board dated May 22, 2019, explanations of judge Vasylieva, and other materials. The Commission’s conclusion:

The judge did not encourage her family members to properly declare their property interests and did not take all reasonable measures to be informed about their property status. The violation of the duty to declare corporate rights, according to the Commission, may indicate concealment of information and dishonest behavior.

The HQCJ identified Kateryna Vasylieva’s non-compliance with the following criteria:

accuracy of information in declarations;

correspondence of expenses and property to declared income;

compliance with anti-corruption legislation requirements.

The Commission concluded that the judge does not meet the requirements of the position in terms of professional ethics and integrity.

Decision of the High Council of Justice

The decision of the Cassation Administrative Court within the Supreme Court dated December 19, 2025, annulled the HQCJ decision dated January 29, 2024, which recognized judge Kateryna Vasylieva of the Sviatoshynskyi District Court of Kyiv as not compliant with the position held.

Considering the above, the High Council of Justice left the HQCJ recommendation regarding the dismissal of judge Kateryna Vasylieva of the Sviatoshynskyi District Court of Kyiv without consideration.

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