Lawyers say Zelensky illegally appointed Constitutional Court judges

Zelensky said he had appointed Oksana Hryshchuk and Oleksandr Petryshyn as Constitutional Court judges.

They are supposed to replace Constitutional Court chairman Oleksandr Tupytsky and judge Oleksandr Kasminin. Tupytsky has been charged with bribing a witness, and both Tupytsky and Kasminin were later fired by Zelensky as a “threat to national security.”

Lawyers from the DEJURE legal think-tank and other watchdogs say Tupytsky’s actions should be investigated but argue that Zelensky has no constitutional right to fire judges of the Constitutional Court. Therefore his appointment of Hryshchuk and Petryshyn is null and void, they say. The President’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.

In July the Supreme Court canceled Zelensky’s dismissal of Tupytsky and Kasminin as unlawful. Zelensky appealed the decision with the court’s grand chamber.

The Constitutional Court has faced mounting criticism since it destroyed Ukraine’s asset declaration system for state officials in 2020.