Wife’s Russian passport and trips to the occupation: The HCJ decided to hide Judge Blokhin’s case from the public

Wife’s Russian passport and trips to the occupation: The HCJ decided to hide Judge Blokhin’s case from the public

The case of the judge being checked for trips to the occupied territory and his wife’s Russian citizenship was decided to be hidden from the public.

The Second Disciplinary Chamber of the HCJ postponed consideration of the case of Judge Serhiy Blokhin of the First Appellate Administrative Court until June 24. But that is not even the main news.

The majority of the Chamber—Burlakov, Spiridonova, and Melnyk—supported the judge’s motion and voted for a closed hearing. This was despite the fact that Blokhin himself could not name a single secret protected by law.

The judge’s arguments boiled down to protecting private life, information about family members, and the safety of children who are on the temporarily occupied territory.

The law provides for exceptional grounds for a closed hearing. However, the judge did not name any secret protected by law, and the fact of his family’s presence in the occupied territory has long been known. Moreover, if sensitive personal matters arise during the hearing, only a separate fragment of the session can be closed, not the entire case.

The subject of the disciplinary proceedings is not the judge’s family life, but his conduct, his wife’s Russian citizenship, visits to the occupied territory, declaration of family members’ assets, and the question of whether such conduct undermines the authority of justice.

Instead, Burlakov, Spiridonova, and Melnyk, as well as disciplinary inspector Lyubarets, who also supported a closed hearing, decided that the public should not know about it. It is precisely this practice that destroys trust.

Yet it seems that for some members of the HCJ, transparency and accountability remain undesirable, especially when it concerns judges facing high-profile integrity issues.