At the trial against Savchenko - a new scandal
Today's meeting of the Shevchenko Court of Kyiv, which was considering the case of Verkhovna Rada deputy and ex-ATO militant Nadezhda Savchenko, turned into a scandal.
The defense announced fraud carried out by the authorities in the appointment of the judge considering the fate of Savchenko. As a result, the defense managed to achieve a decision to challenge judge Vladimir Bugel in the case of considering the extension of the preventive measure, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
At the beginning of the hearing, Nadezhda Savchenko’s lawyer took the floor and demanded that his client be released from the glass cage.
After this, the defense questioned the legality of the judge’s presence in the courtroom.
"Your Honor. Based on the results of our review, we have a statement regarding the recusal of the judge for the following reasons. Initially, according to all protocols, this case was assigned to Judge Meleshak. She began the hearing, but prosecutors announced her recusal, arguing that she was on vacation at the time of the automatic assignment, and therefore did not have the right to be appointed. Thus, the auto-distribution procedure was violated, which is the basis for disqualifying the judge.
In addition, documents actually appeared that were not available at the time of consideration. But they clearly show that during the distribution Judge Meleshak was at her workplace. She made the decisions that day. At the time of distribution, no application was received from her regarding the provision of leave for sickness or any other reasons. All this is confirmed by the documents in the case.
The application for Judge Meleshak's leave was registered at 9.30, and the auto distribution itself took place at 9.25, that is, a little earlier. Judge Meleshak simply submitted an application, but did not go on leave, and the order was not issued. Even until she submitted an application for leave, it could not be granted to her.
Thus, in my opinion and in the opinion of the letter of the law, the auto distribution was made to a person who was at the workplace, therefore there were no grounds for her exclusion,” the lawyer said.
Then the defendant Nadezhda Savchenko herself took the floor:
“I was surprised that the prosecutor’s office filed a motion to disqualify the judge. At first I thought that they wanted to cover themselves in case the judge was on vacation or something went wrong, or they were simply not happy with the judge in question. It turned out that Judge Meleshak is the judge who makes objective decisions in favor of the person, and not just in favor of the system.
I have a feeling that someone put pressure on the judge and said: “You will not judge, otherwise, God forbid, you will not condemn.” I’m sure that the judge was simply forced to abandon the case 5 minutes after she learned that she had to deal with it,” Savchenko said.
As a result, a decision was made to recall the judge.
“You know the procedure for considering a challenge; we ask the parties not to separate in the near future,” Judge Bugel announced.
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