My work as a member of the High Council of Justice (HCJ) involves thousands of pages of case files, candidate dossier reviews, dry procedural phrasing, and hours of live broadcasts. However, even in serious work, situations occasionally arise where everyday trivialities or procedural absurdities take on a genuinely humorous and ironic character.
Below are four stories from my practice at the HCJ, illustrating the unexpected arguments, reactions, and attempted “traps” I sometimes encounter during Council sessions.
The “Non-integrity” of a T-shirt
During a live broadcast of an HCJ session, a domestic curiosity unexpectedly escalated into a passionate debate about my dress code and “hidden messages.”
My colleague on the Council, Vitaliy Salikhov, unexpectedly raised the topic of my appearance, criticizing me for coming to the meeting wearing a graphic t-shirt with text inscriptions. He emotionally inquired whether this t-shirt carried a hidden message for an outside observer, comparing it to “a t-shirt with fascist symbols,” and accusingly asked:
“Aren’t there other clean t-shirts in your family?”
To this, I gave a thoroughly grounded and calm response:
“I picked a regular one, which was clean and happened to be on top, simply put…”
The dialogue became so heated that the presiding officer had to call us to order and remind everyone that the session was being broadcast live on air.
”Penetrating the Secrecy of the Deliberation Room”
The most comical procedural drama occurred during the disciplinary hearing of Judge Yaroslav Oras. His attorney Rostyslav Kravets — one of my most vocal opponents in HCJ meetings — launched a series of dramatic accusations, the peak of which was an allegation of my alleged “criminal offense.”
When I asked a completely standard procedural question — regarding the rationale behind a court order appointing an expert examination that ultimately led to the physical destruction of property — attorney Kravets suddenly began emotionally shouting across the room. He dramatically declared that an HCJ member was right now attempting to commit a crime and “penetrate the secrecy of the judicial deliberation room.” A routine inquiry into case logic within my official duties was instantly transformed in the lawyer’s imagination into a “felonious intrusion into the holy of holies” of the court process.
The absurdity of the hearing was completed by another attempt by the attorney to set a public trap for me on record. Kravets asked under transcript:
“Were you held accountable at the beginning of this year under Article 130 [driving under the influence], which was then deleted from all databases?”
The irony reached its climax when the presiding officer decided to clarify with Judge Oras himself whether this scandalous attack by his defense counsel was coordinated with him. The judge completely disowned his own lawyer on record, replying dryly: “Not agreed.”
Letters from Zoya Kosmodemyanska
In my work reviewing judicial dossiers and conducting candidate interviews, I always try to be meticulous about details. However, during the examination of documents submitted by judicial candidate Yulia Ostapenko, the review caught an unexpected detail.
While reviewing the dossier submitted by the candidate, I noticed the name of her personal email address — zoya1kom@gmail.com.
My inquiry regarding the logic behind such an email address forced the candidate to officially explain to us during the HCJ meeting that back in her student years, friends had nicknamed her “Zoya Kosmodemyanska” for her “speed, briskness, and audacity.” She had simply grown accustomed to the email address and had not changed it since.
Grammatical Recusal
Perhaps the most absurd and overly meticulous recusal motion against me was submitted by notorious Kyiv District Administrative Court (OASK) judge Yevgeniy Ablov.
Analyzing posts on my personal Facebook page, Ablov found grounds for my recusal in… an improperly used conjunction in the title of a law!
The judge officially complained to the HCJ that in a post dated April 27, 2023, I wrote: “Law of Ukraine ‘On the Judiciary та [and] Status of Judges’”.
Ablov argued in complete seriousness that the official title of the law contains the conjunction “і” [and], and that my use of the conjunction “та” [and] “may demean the status of judges and is unacceptable,” since an HCJ member lacks the authority to alter statutory titles.
In addition, Judge Ablov took personal offense at my use of the “unconstitutional” term “honorable retirement” in the post.