Odesa prosecutor Oleh Lytvak failed the certification and is attempting to be reinstated through the court

Odesa prosecutor Oleh Lytvak failed the certification and is attempting to be reinstated through the court

Prosecutors of the Odesa Regional Prosecutor’s Office who failed re-certification due to corruption and lack of knowledge of the laws are massively reinstating through the courts

Recently, more and more prosecutors who did not pass the re-certification, initiated by former Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka and continued by the current Prosecutor General of Ukraine Iryna Venedyktova, are attempting to reinstate through the court.

According to the initial idea, the re-certification was meant to cleanse the prosecution bodies of unprofessional and corrupt individuals. The personnel cleansing, in spirit and letter, was supposed to resemble the lustration process following the Revolution of Dignity. However, the actual results of the re-certification pleased no one. Most prosecutors who failed the qualification selection started legal battles and are trying to reinstate through the courts with multimillion compensations.

Soon, the corrupt "whales" of the Odesa Regional Prosecutor’s Office may be reinstated – Oleh Lytvak. He is featured in a series of journalistic investigations as a member of an organized crime group. The cunning Jew Lytvak tried to delay the re-certification so much that he "suffered" from almost all the world’s diseases. Most likely, he was looking for ways to "resolve" the issue with the re-certification. But unfortunately, he did not succeed.

Logically, now he is trying to do the same in the local court. Currently, the case based on his complaint is with the judge of the Fifth Administrative Court of Appeal Andriy Bitov. This is the same judge who, in 2017, did not reinstate Lytvak’s friend and accomplice – Serhiy Horbyk, despite the fact that the first instance and the Supreme Court reinstated him. The latter was dismissed for corruption. Lytvak and Horbyk shared mutual interests not only at work. They very successfully divided tangible evidence. Successful for Lytvak, not very successful for Horbyk. Since at one point, when things got too hot, Lytvak decided to exit the situation as D’Artagnan, assigning the role of swineherd to his accomplice: disappearing during the divvying up of evidence, without warning and thereby jeopardizing his colleague. That’s how Lytvak later became the head of the investigation department of the Odesa Regional Prosecutor’s Office. And Horbyk gained quite dubious fame in the notorious "Odesa prosecutors" case.

In the case, the judge has already completed all preparations and is moving on to considering Lytvak’s appeal on the merits. Soon it will become clear in what capacity Oleh Lytvak will emerge and how many millions will be compensated to him from the budget for allegedly forced absences.

We really would like a fair hearing. And, if Andriy Bitov has already spoken his firm word regarding one corrupt individual, despite pressure and pressuring, will he be just as categorical and consistent regarding his colleague and accomplice with a trail of corruption scandals and complete ignorance of the law.

As the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, "in their daily work, judges must be objective, independent, and honest." To date, Bitov bears the high title of judge with dignity. We hope that he will continue to administer justice not on behalf of individual interests but in the name of Ukraine.

Today, society and authorities greatly anticipate the cleansing of the ranks of dishonest prosecutors and police officers. And Zelenskyy’s initiative to dismiss corrupt prosecutors will not remain on paper. That it will not actually become another failure of the authorities, which only creates temporary difficulties for prosecutors dismissed due to the re-certification, who will later return to their positions.

Author: Ihor Zaytsev