Case description
On January 31, 2023, the HACC found Olha Panchenko, the former head of the Kharkiv District Administrative Court, guilty of pressuring and attempting to bribe Judge Olena Zaichko to resolve the land issue in favor of a commercial company.
Olha Panchenko has been a judge of the Kharkiv District Administrative Court (KDAC) since 2008, and in February 2020, she became the head of the court. Olena Zaichko, whom Panchenko tried to bribe, has also been a HACC judge since 2009.
In January 2020, the KDAC received an appeal from the SLICE Housing and Construction Cooperative with a claim against the Department of Urban Development and Architecture of the Kharkiv City Council (DMA) to declare unlawful the refusal to provide the cooperative with urban planning conditions and restrictions for the design of a construction project. Zaichko sustained the claim, but later the State Municipal Administration filed an application for reconsideration of this decision.
In September 2020, Panchenko offered Judge Zaichko a USD 3,000 bribe for refusing to grant the city department's application for reconsideration, i.e., to rule in favor of the cooperative. The ex-head of the KDAC was detained in her office when she tried to give a bribe to Zaichko.
The court charged Panchenko with Article 369, part 3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and sentenced her to 5 years in prison with a 3-year ban on holding the position of judge.
In March, the defendant filed an appeal. However, she later requested that the proceedings be suspended because Olha Panchenko had been mobilized into the Armed Forces.
