Disciplinary Chamber of the High Council of Justice votes to dismiss Judge Holnyk over leaks from closed registry

Vote on dismissal

The First Disciplinary Chamber of the High Council of Justice (HJC) supported the motion to dismiss Larysa Holnyk from her position as a judge of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Poltava. The final decision on dismissal must be made by the full composition of the High Council of Justice. Until this issue is finally resolved, Holnyk is suspended from exercising judicial functions.

Conflict with a journalist

The complaint against the judge was filed by local journalist and owner of the website “Ostanniy Bastion” (Last Bastion), Hennadii Sykalov. This resource was blocked by the State Special Communications Service in December 2024 for spreading disinformation and propaganda materials that pose a threat to national security. Sykalov has been publishing critical materials about Holnyk for years, while the judge believes that the sole beneficiary of the journalist’s efforts is Poltava’s former mayor Oleksandr Mamai.

The conflict has a long history. In 2015, Holnyk became known after statements regarding an attempted bribery case in the interests of the mayor of Poltava. At that time, an attempt to bribe the judge was documented by the deputy mayor, Dmytro Trykhno. Initially, the Kyivskyi District Court of Poltava acquitted Trykhno, but in January 2022, the Kharkiv Court of Appeal overturned the acquittal, found him guilty of offering a bribe to Judge Holnyk, and imposed a suspended sentence. The Supreme Court later upheld this verdict.

Corruption scandal involving Mamai

Cases concerning Oleksandr Mamai himself were heard separately. In 2023, the High Anti-Corruption Court approved a plea bargain. Mamai was found guilty of organising the misappropriation of UAH 570,000 of local budget funds through a scheme involving the fictitious employment of two individuals who were actually his domestic workers. In the spring of 2023, after the verdict took legal force, the Poltava City Executive Committee dismissed Mamai from his position as mayor.

Holnyk repeatedly published sharp statements on Facebook and in blogs, accusing opponents, including former court head Oleksandr Strukov, of creating intolerable working conditions and attempting to discredit her as a whistleblower. Her position was supported by anti-corruption organisations such as the Centre for Counteracting Corruption and the DE JURE Foundation, as well as the publications “Ukrainska Pravda” and “LIGA.net”. The judge’s husband, independent journalist Ihor Havylenko, also expressed similar views.

Accusations from other journalists

In addition to Sykalov, journalist Volodymyr Boyko is also against Holnyk. He accuses the judge and her husband of attempting to seize the garage of a mentally ill neighbour using forged documents. Boyko is also in a lawsuit with Holnyk regarding the protection of his honour and dignity.

«Суддя… два з половиною роки систематично поширює на своїй офіціальній фейсбук-сторінці та в своїх «суддівських» блогах на «Ліга.нет» і «Цензор.нет» фантастичні наклепи, брудні образи, нецензурну лайку й навіть антисемітські вислови на мою адресу… публічно називає мене «жидом»… багато разів публікувала срань з нікому не відомого анонімного російського сайту про те, що я завербований спецслужбами Російської Федерації, які замовили мені дискредитацію її друга Шабуніна» (The judge… for two and a half years has systematically spread fantastic slander, dirty insults, obscene abuse, and even antisemitic remarks against me on her official Facebook page and in her “judicial” blogs on “LIGA.net” and “Tsentzor.net”… publicly calls me a “Jew”… many times published rubbish from an anonymous Russian site unknown to anyone about me being recruited by the special services of the Russian Federation, which ordered me to discredit her friend Shabunin), Boyko explains.

Closed registry as an instrument of revenge

At the centre of the disciplinary proceedings are events surrounding a complaint against Holnyk’s colleague, Judge Nataliia Tymoshenko, which was filed on 15 March 2025 together with her husband Ihor Havylenko. Holnyk claimed that, while studying case law on determining a child’s place of residence, she identified signs of disciplinary violations in Tymoshenko’s rulings. Such cases are often used by draft dodgers to obtain a deferment from mobilisation and permission to leave the country.

One of the three cases analysed concerned Sykalov himself. In 2023, Judge Tymoshenko heard his lawsuit against his ex-wife regarding the determination of their daughter’s place of residence. Sykalov requested a closed hearing, fearing that the information would be used against his family. Holnyk, having full access to the registry of court decisions, viewed this closed ruling twice and conducted searches using the queries “Sykalov reinstatement”, “Sykalov, Holnyk”, and “Sykalov criminal proceedings”.

In her Facebook post, Holnyk described this case in detail, calling Sykalov the owner of a “pro-Kremlin website”. She noted that the court ruling allowed Sykalov to be released from military service “due to family circumstances”, although these circumstances had not changed at the time of conscription. The judge also disclosed personal data of witnesses, the child’s opinion, the date of Sykalov’s divorce (2007), and information about his ex-wife’s trips abroad. In the other two cases, Holnyk limited herself to a general description without disclosing confidential data.

In addition to data from the registry, the judge used confidential information from the “Arkan” system regarding Sykalov’s, his ex-wife’s, and their minor daughter’s crossing of the state border during and after the hearing of the cases in 2023 and 2024. Sykalov claims that Havylenko obtained this data from journalist and adviser to the head of the Lviv Central Administrative Court, Liubomyr Ferents.

Hearing at the HJC

On 19 October 2019, during the disciplinary chamber session, Holnyk and her husband connected via video link, filing recusal motions against the chamber members. The session was disrupted, apparently due to communication problems. On 1 November, Holnyk promised to be present in person, but that morning she registered a statement of inability to attend due to a session of the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCC) scheduled for 13:00, while the complaint hearing at the HJC started at 10:00. The disciplinary inspector noted that the judge could have been present. Since the deadline for hearing the complaint was 7 November, the chamber decided to hear the case in Holnyk’s absence.

Accusations and defence

Hennadii Sykalov stated that he considers himself a whistleblower and that there has been a long-standing confrontation between him and Holnyk. He recounted that the head of the intelligence department of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), Oleksandr Yermak, once introduced him to Holnyk and Havylenko, saying that Holnyk was his person who had media support for career growth. Sykalov refused to publish materials in their honour, after which, according to him, Holnyk and Havylenko threatened him with problems, came to his child’s school, and told the children that his father was a bandit.

In written explanations read out by the disciplinary inspector, Holnyk claimed that the information became known to her in connection with her professional activity and was transmitted through internal channels, and that she acts as a whistleblower. She referred to the guarantees of inviolability for whistleblowers. However, the disciplinary inspector noted that this has no legal basis, as the complaint concerns a disciplinary, not a corruption, violation. It was also noted that Holnyk consciously took active steps to obtain the data, using her full access, and had the opportunity to publish the information without disclosing personal data, as was done in other cases.

The rapporteur proposed applying a reprimand with a one-month deprivation of allowances to Holnyk. However, HJC member Vitalii Mahinchuk noted that, given her more than 15 years of experience, the judge was aware of the illegality of her actions. He proposed dismissing Holnyk. Four out of five chamber members voted in favour of this decision, one voted against. Holnyk has the right to appeal this decision.