Roman Babiy: The state has not paid Russians 3 billion UAH in connection with the "Judge Ivchenko case."

People's Deputy Roman Babiy: "I became aware of the existence of this situation in the autumn of 2022. To update its status and to determine whether the Cabinet of Ministers has returned the 38.6 million UAH paid over the past 8 (!) years (now already 10) and why this has not been done, it required dozens of deputy inquiries, most of which were 'kicked around' by the Cabinet of Ministers."

In democratic states, power is divided into legislative, executive, and judicial branches, which should balance and check each other. This is known as the principle of checks and balances, an idea that has existed since the 17th century. The implementation of this principle requires the independence of each branch of power from the others. This was reported by Judicial and Legal Newspaper.

There are numerous examples of how the executive branch "balances" the judicial branch in Ukraine. Here is the most recent one.

Back in September 2012, the Economic Court of Kyiv issued a ruling that satisfied the lawsuit of the Russian Ministry of Defense against our Cabinet and ordered the state to pay the debt amounting to 38.6 million UAH to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. This ruling was reviewed and upheld by the appellate court at the end of 2012 (a panel of three judges) and by the cassation court in early 2013 (also a panel of three judges). Thus, it was recognized as legal by six judges of higher instances.

To execute it, 38.6 million UAH was effectively withdrawn from the state budget.

Then, in March 2014, the same Economic Court of Kyiv reviewed the ruling based on newly discovered circumstances, annulled it, and completely denied the lawsuit of Russia. I remind you that "newly discovered" refers to circumstances that existed at the time of the case review but were unknown to the court when the ruling was made and, consequently, were not taken into account. Since a certain amount had already been withdrawn based on this court ruling, the new ruling involved a "reversal of execution," and the Cabinet of Ministers was ordered to recover 38.6 million UAH from the Russian Ministry of Defense into our budget. The Cabinet of Ministers was to present this order for enforcement in a Russian court. Did the Cabinet of Ministers do everything possible to recover these funds? The answer is - not quite) (more on this below).

Currently, Judge Ivchenko, who issued that first ruling in September 2012, is being prosecuted for treason.
I became aware of the existence of this situation in the autumn of 2022. To update its status and determine whether the Cabinet of Ministers has returned the 38.6 million UAH paid over 8 (!) years (now already 10) and why this has not been done, it took dozens of deputy inquiries, most of which were "kicked around" by the Cabinet of Ministers.

Let's start with the judicial branch of power

A small remark for understanding - a representative of the judicial power is currently being held accountable due to the actions of the executive power (law enforcement agencies). How our society views traitors in the third year of a full-scale war, especially "traitors in robes," is worth mentioning. Therefore, all the "political points" from this event are being collected by the executive power.

Only one judge is being held accountable. The representatives of the executive power (the State Bureau of Investigations) have no claims against the judges who reviewed and upheld this judge's ruling (I remind you, there were six), but they do have claims against the ruling itself, based on the interpretation of substantive and procedural law norms, as well as the reevaluation of evidence in the case by law enforcement representatives, but not by the court.

This is where the fundamental principle of the distribution of functions among branches of power should have been recalled, which should have prevented the reevaluation of judicial decisions that have entered into legal force by representatives of the executive power.

Another point - the suspect judge in February 2013 (after the cassation recognized his ruling as legal) issued a decision on the Cabinet of Ministers' motion, which altered the execution method and determined that funds should only be collected from the account designated for compensating damages from illegal decisions made by the state. Such a ruling (which essentially makes it "inconvenient" for the creditor to execute quickly and fully) is attributed to the judge as a continuation of state treason. Again, this ruling was reviewed by higher courts and upheld as legal.

Considering all this, 38.6 million UAH was withdrawn from the Ukrainian state budget in favor of the Russian Ministry of Defense from the awarded 3 billion. Then the ruling was annulled, not as illegal, but based on new, previously unknown circumstances to the court. And the issuance of documents that allowed the Cabinet of Ministers to recover the withdrawn amount.

What about the actions of the executive power?

In October 2014, the Cabinet of Ministers received all the opportunities to recover the paid funds. How did officials utilize these opportunities during the tenures of two presidents - Poroshenko and Zelensky?

In October 2015, the Arbitration Court of Moscow denied the Cabinet of Ministers' request to recognize and grant permission to execute the Economic Court of Kyiv's ruling on the recovery of funds on Russian territory. A predictable ruling - what else could be expected from the swamp justice after the beginning of the occupation of our country. This is likely how officials reasoned. But it is evident that everything possible should have been done.

Next, the Cabinet of Ministers missed the deadline for appealing this Russian court ruling, and their request for its renewal was denied in August 2016, after which the Ukrainian side left attempts to recover funds for almost seven years. It seems they had no intention of revisiting this issue since (attention) during this time they managed to lose the court order and even made the court case inaccessible.

After the onset of the full-scale invasion, Russian assets were actively identified and "frozen" in European countries, giving Ukraine a chance to enforce such assets based on court rulings, without separate decisions from our European partners, to obtain funds for a budget that was in dire need during the war. It was precisely to create a corresponding precedent that I became interested in this case in the autumn of 2022.

Destroyed documents and empty promises

Through numerous deputy inquiries, I managed to clarify the situation to some extent. Initially, in their responses, the executive authorities mainly pointed fingers at each other, "confusing the trail."

The Ministry of Justice informed me that they destroyed the documents of this case back in 2018. They also do not have the authority to represent the interests of the Cabinet of Ministers during the enforcement of judicial decisions, including on foreign territory. If the Cabinet of Ministers had given them such a directive, they would have requested the court to issue a duplicate of the lost court order. However, the Cabinet did not give such an instruction.

The Cabinet of Ministers, which previously responded that all questions were to be directed to the Ministry of Justice, clearly had no intention of giving any directives.
The elegance (and blatant mockery) of the Prime Minister's response deserves to be quoted verbatim:

"... the absence of a system of electronic interaction among government authorities in 2012-2015, the rotation of personnel in government service positions, particularly those involved in the handling of this case, both in the courts of Ukraine and in the courts of the Russian Federation (hereinafter - RF), the limited storage period and destruction of documents (in particular materials of judicial case No. 5011-61/11340-2012) significantly complicate, and sometimes make it impossible to fully and accurately reproduce all circumstances of the execution of the Economic Court of Kyiv's ruling of March 7, 2014, in this case."

"Furthermore, we inform you that the State Bureau of Investigations has conducted a seizure of all materials of judicial case No. 5011-61/11340-2012, which deprives the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine of the opportunity to obtain a duplicate of the enforcement document, and that the deadlines established for its enforcement have expired."

So, it doesn't matter who lost the enforcement document, and there's no need to investigate this? According to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, the enforcement of the court ruling has now been obstructed by the SBI? Or was it necessary for money not to be returned all these years, the harm to the state from "betrayal" remained real, and thus it was possible to keep the judge "on a hook" and initiate treason proceedings when it would be advantageous for one reason or another? This is, to put it mildly, either incompetence or a sophisticated scheme? I would prefer to believe neither.

Here we are again back to the principle of separation of powers and a