Anton Zelinskyi on Corruption, Integrity, and Ukrainian Judiciary

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/02/19

Anton Zelinskyi is a legal reform advocate in Ukraine, affiliated with DEJURE and serving as a member of the Public Integrity Council. His work focuses on judicial transparency, integrity, and combating corruption, employing tools like the Bangalore Principles and detailed case analyses. He advocates aligning Ukraine’s legal standards with European Union norms amid war and systemic challenges. Zelinskyi’s efforts reflect a commitment to fostering accountability and trust in Ukraine’s judiciary, inspiring progress despite significant obstacles. Zelinskyi emphasized the PIC’s role in evaluating judges’ integrity through detailed analyses and standards like the Bangalore Principles. There is an employment of tools including detailed analyses of judges’ dossiers and public coverage of judicial reform hurdles as points of progress. The High Council of Justice is not a real obstacle in judicial reform. For now, the primary issue lies with the old judicial elites that have not been cleansed from the Supreme Court. He highlighted Ukraine’s rise in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, contrasting it with Russia’s declining rank due to systemic corruption. Despite these hurdles, Zelinskyi is optimistic, driven by citizens’ commitment to transparency, reform, and alignment with European Union standards.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So here we are today with Anton Zelinskyi. He’s affiliated with DEJURE, a legal and judicial reform-focused organization. Anton also serves as a member of the Public Integrity Council. This council plays a role in evaluating the integrity of judges as part of judicial reform and oversight efforts. These individual roles within larger organizations deal with integrity, transparency, and related issues. This is more of an ethics and accountability-focused interview. So, first and foremost, how extensive is the work of the Public Integrity Council?

Anton Zelinskyi: I was an analyst for the first and second compositions of the Public Integrity Council, and I have dealt with much analysis of judges, their dossiers, and so on. I have a good idea of what this work would entail, but there were many challenges in doing our work because we raised the quality bar. We make our decisions with detailed analysis. We check all the declarations, all the facts from the judges, their careers, and so forth. Sometimes, our decisions are 20 or 30 pages long and detailing the judge’s entire life in terms of integrity..

That’s why it’s considerable work. But on the other hand, we have some issues with the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) because they were reluctant to provide us full access to the information. They asked us to go to their building to take photos from their computers to obtain this information, to take photos of massive paper parts of dossiers, and so on. It took much time, and in the end, the pace of our work was slow. So we checked 250 judges within a year [about 1500 are waiting for the assessment].

The work is challenging, but this year’s number of analyzed judges was not very large. 

Jacobsen: Regarding integrity vis-à-vis judges, how are we defining this in legal and ethical terms?

Zelinskyi: We follow the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct and international standards. 

As a PIC, we have our own criteria from 2018. It’s a comprehensive set of criteria for deciding whether a judge poses integrity. In November 2023, we also agreed with the HQCJ on 18 core indicators of judge integrity and how we use them.  PIC criteria are broader than we agreed with the HQCJ. We reference both in our decisions. And, about a month ago, the High Council of Justice (HCJ) also developed its unified criteria. According to the law, we need to use them, as  a unified approach for the HCJ, HQCJ and the Public Integrity Council (PIC) in some way. Still, we just started this process, and you can find one or two decisions that also mention these unified criteria. [Basically, we cite all three documents, but they differ in scope: the PIC’s criteria cover a broader range of ethical violations, while the HCJ’s are, let’s say, more conservative.]

Additionally, there is also a Judicial Ethics Code in Ukraine. We don’t pay much attention to it because it was conveniently written by judges for themselves. They often cite it, as its wording makes it difficult to hold them accountable for anything.  

Jacobsen: Now, these are one set of rules or principles convenient for judges, written by judges. It sounds like a bank robber is writing the rules about criminal jurisdiction regarding robbing banks or lawyers writing laws about how lawyers could be prosecuted. Yes, there’s a conflict of interest there. How do you circumnavigate a too convenient principle for those to whom the ethics are applied?

Zelinskyi: The fact you mentioned, is a broader problem. We have big troubles also in the Bar, not only in judiciary.. So, in the old days, during Yanukovych’s time, the bar and judiciary self-governing organization, were made to pursue the only goal to cover up or rescue corrupt judges or attoreney, something like that. So, if we have questions for a judge regarding the integrity, they always say it’s in line with to our code of behaviour and ethics; we didn’t make anything that is prohibited. 

Jacobsen: What have you seen in your work as the most substantial change or reform to accountability, transparency, and codes of ethics for judges?

Zelinskyi: We changed a lot. A taxi driver asked me one time what has changed in judiciary for these years. So regular people don’t see any changes, but I see many of them. The reform has started in 2016, and we are cleansing the judiciary step by step. Over the last year, almost all judges who were corrupt, dishonest, and so on—representatives of the corrupt, old judicial elites—were recommended for dismissal by the HQCJ [and some of them have been already dismissed by High Council of Justice (HCJ)]. I see our work important as the Public Integrity Council has produced some results. We see that HQCJ agree with us in many cases. They pay attention to our conclusions, and there is public attention to it. That’s why they’re a bit afraid to do something shady. The statistics say that only about 45% of our conclusions were supported by the HQCJ [, but it’s a huge difference, as 5 years ago it was something like 4%].

But at the core, so called Maidan judges, [who persecuted protestants during the Revolution of Dignity] or other famous, notorious ones has been dismissed,  HQCJ agreed with our conclusions on them, and it’s a good sign that this body, HQCJ, is working in the right direction. So, our work makes a difference. 

For me personally, as advocacy manager of the DEJURE Foundation, struggle against the detrimental decision made by the Supreme Court in the summer 2024 was very important. The Supreme Court decided that 180 judges with low integrity don’t need to go through the whole process of qualification assessment.

There were some legal explanations for their decision. Still, they made a U-turn from all their decisions during these eight years. They said there is some legal ground that these judges should be appointed to the positions without having joint interviews with PIC and HQCJ members. Since then, we have done much work. We published many different articles. I attended many YouTube channels and generated much interest in the mass media.

Ultimately, HQCJ started this process to continue interviewing these judges; some of these low-integrity judges have already been dismissed. So it’s an important development that happened last year. I’m sorry for the long answers. The questions are difficult to answer.

Jacobsen: People who haven’t been in Ukraine don’t understand the context of constant curfews, air raid alarms in the middle of the night every night, sometimes running around the clock, especially in the last 12 months as far as I was last there. The frequency of strikes is much higher regardless of the city. And so you’ll have to take into context here: when you are trying to make legal, judicial, and other reforms, you’re doing them amid daily terror, with the public bombing civilian targets where no observable military targets are around. So it’s a very different context than if you’re in a country that wants to transition and make some reforms systemically throughout its judicial system in a more relaxed context. It is much different. So, to convey to people the difficulties of doing this, there is a modest chance of death every day, as well as for those who work with you or even the judges themselves. There’s this constant pattering of alarms on your phone, alarms in the apps you can download that tell you where various missiles and UAVs are coming from, or the air raid alarms you might hear in the distance.

Zelinskyi: Yes. It was strange for me before the full-scale war, like how people live in Israel. It’s constant bombing and so on. These shellingss were nightmares, and it was, of course, frightening for me. I can speak for myself, but it’s common for people to be frightened in 2022 [when full-scale war started] . But now it’s three years of war, and we have become accustomed to it. It’s an environment that you cannot change. And if we see, for example, in our Telegram channels, if I see something dangerous like drones attack alert, I don’t care about it.  We don’t care about Shaheds, but if it’s missiles or ballistic rockets or something like that, of course we go to the shelters. But I don’t see it as a big problem in our work

But overall, it’s common stuff for Ukraine; understandably, people are accustomed to it. It’s something that is almost okay now. So, we don’t pay much attention. It’s dangerous. It’s frightening, but the brain works this way, and people become accustomed to anything, even bad things. 

Jacobsen: For most people, once they are there, it takes about two weeks, and then you don’t care. The alarm alerts you get on your phone become like annoying texts.

Zelinskyi: It depends. There are stronger people, but there are people with anxiety and so on, and this doesn’t work for them. It cannot be changed if they’re anxious, but with time, some can. They were frightened two or three years ago, and they are frightened now. So it’s an individual thing, but I described how it changed over the years for myself. 

Jacobsen: What part of judicial reform is the most critical that has not been done so far? What are the barriers to it? 

Zelinskyi: It’s a good question because it has a straightforward answer. It’s the Supreme Court. We had the Supreme Court of Ukraine in 2016, Ukraine’s most powerful judicial body. We could argue that the Constitutional Court is part of the system. Still, we could only pay attention to the general jurisdictions without this special constitutional stuff. It would be the Supreme Court. What was done in 2016 is not a reform, basically only the name was changed.

So they deleted “Ukraine,” in the name and it became the “new” Supreme Court. The process of judicial selection was compromised. We have a good idea that there was some sharing of the answers to the practical tasks, testing, and so on, and all the corrupted judges were successful during this selection. To give you an idea, we had four high specialized courts, and all heads of these courts became heads of these parts of the new Supreme Court. So, the officials, the leadership of the old Supreme Court moved to the new one— it stayed the same.

It was a good idea to start with the most influential court because all other courts are obliged to be in line with the decisions of the Supreme Court. There was a fault in the beginning and all the other changes—the good selection for the High Anti-corruption Court, okaish, selection for the HQCJ and HCJ, all other reforms now depend on the decisions of the Supreme Court. There are many bad decisions of this court—I could talk a lot about them—but the most famous was this one in the summer. It was even mentioned in Ukraine 2024 Report by EU Commission

So, nowadays, we must make a second attempt to reform this court. We have some tools. The HQCJ, for example, has the right to check judges’ declarations of integrity. Part of this declaration is when the judges state that their property is from declared income, so they have enough money to buy it legally, and so on.

However, most of their property comes from other sources, not official salaries. You may remember, in 2023, there was a case when the Head of the Supreme Court, Kniaziev, was caught with a $2,700,000 bribe. As we know from the prosecutor’s speeches, he asked during the call to prepare 13 black packages with money—$50,000 to $150,000 each for other judges. And we know for sure that some of these judges received them During a search, the NABU and prosecutors went to their apartments.

They checked all their belongings and  found money connected to the case because the investigators knew the serial numbers of the banknotes [these banknotes were marked by investigators previously]. But in the end, these judges said, “Oh, I borrowed this money from my chief” and that’s it. So, no one was caught except Kniazev… but we clearly understand that in this case, there were at least 13 judges involved.

So it’s one of the examples. There are others, but it’s the most significant or famous one. 

Jacobsen: Then, a lot of human rights abuse arguments that are made about Ukraine and Russia during this war have to be taken into account in terms of balancing scales. The international community condemned the aggression of the Russian Federation on February 24, 2022, with General Assembly Resolution ES-11/1, basically condemning the aggression, calling for the withdrawal of all troops and the return of all annexed land.

Ignoring abstentions, the international community voted 141 in favour of condemning that resolution, so accepting it, and only five against it, one of which was North Korea. So, you have a scale there of 141 to 5. It’s similar to this and many other war contexts when trying to implement judicial reforms during a war. If you were to make a comparative case, you look at the development since 2016. That was the earliest date referenced in this interview so far.

Suppose you take that date and look at the reforms in Ukraine, from the Supreme Court down to judicial reform and ethics. How does that compare or contrast with the Russian efforts to combat corruption in the Russian Federation? As far as I know, there are respected indices or indexes of corruption within a country. I haven’t looked at or done a detailed analysis of them. I should continue this work. Regardless, each country may have a legal or judicial subsection of the index score. How does the effort to combat corruption in the Russian Federation under the Kremlin, particularly President Vladimir Putin, compare to President Zelensky and Ukraine?

Zelinskyi: We cannot verify any figures from Russia about its budget and so on because it’s an authoritarian country. Russia presents numbers about its population, financial system, and so on as it wants. Putin decides what numbers should be published, and they do it. All other organizations cannot check whether it’s true or not.

If we talk about Ukraine, there have been many steps toward battling corruption. We see a lot of scandals in Ukraine connected with corruption, and we often perceive this as a bad sign—”Ukraine is so corrupt; it’s so bad; it cannot be changed.” Many efforts have been made, and people say, “Nothing changes.” But from my perspective, it’s a good sign that we have these scandals. It means that our anti-corruption bodies are working fine. They are finding these violations. They identify corrupt judges and start trials. So it’s a good sign. It’s a sign of battling corruption.

I didn’t answer how important it is to make judicial reform during the war. It’s not just taxi drivers who ask me about it; it’s also soldiers. They return on leave from the front line for a week or two. They all ask about how we deal with corruption, what changes have been made, whether bad judges have been dismissed, what’s happening with government reforms, etc. It’s the very stuff they are fighting for.

They believe in a bright future for Ukraine in the European Union—one where this country protects human rights, has a prosperous economy, and so on. They are ready to put their lives on the line to give this opportunity to others who are not on the front line, to people like me who work in Kyiv. They believe we can change something, which greatly motivates me. I know I’m not very good at fighting on the front line, but I’m good at fighting corrupt judges, government corruption, courts, etc.

I do my part, and seeing the results is satisfying. My previous job was in an IT company, where I was an in-house lawyer. I had a good salary, little work, and a happy life with sports activities —until this new work ruined that comfort.

That previous job sounds wonderful. What more do you want? But I didn’t feel I was doing something meaningful for this country. After about a year at this new job, I realized it is very important for Ukraine.

Maybe it’s not so obvious to Europeans or representatives of the United States and Canada. But we see reforms from our positions. It’s closer to us, and we see the little results day by day. Of course, it’s not perfect, but the progress is visible.

The judicial reform is halfway done or something like that. Of course, we don’t see much initiative from our government. We could see a bit of effort from Zelensky as a president. However, all the real reforms are pushed from outside by obligations to Ukraine from the European Union or the United States in exchange for financial support. This is how it works.

When our government hears, “Oh, please do this reform, and we will give you $1,000,000,000,” they do it. 

Jacobsen: It’s also part of human nature. The human species had existed for around a quarter of a million years when we speciated from some prior ancestor. So, human nature does not change over a month, a year, or even a thousand years. The point of judicial reform and law generally is to identify individuals breaking norms and laws as much as possible. When those cases come up, as you noted, it shows that the system is working. It doesn’t mean you’ve reformed the system completely or, more importantly, human nature. That’s the key point.

Zelinskyi: There is a Ukrainian saying that 10% of people will never take a bribe, no matter what. Another 10% will take a bribe at every possible opportunity, and the remaining 80% will decide based on their environment. Is it good or not for them to take a bribe? So, we are creating an environment where it is clear that taking a bribe will lead you to jail.

You agree that corruption exists in Canada and the United States. Maybe it’s not on the same scale. Still, it’s naive to think corruption is only in Ukraine or that corruption in the United States is eradicated.

Jacobsen: The character and degree are the two main factors. By character, I mean the overall landscape of corruption—the considered types and contexts. In some theocratic societies, for instance, blasphemy is considered a crime. In other contexts, it’s considered an imaginary crime.

In another context, people might say, “Well, I don’t care if you think it’s imaginary. I believe in that God, and you’ve offended him. Therefore, you have to abide by that belief.” 

Zelinskyi: Can you elaborate more on the concept of an “imaginary crime”? What does it mean?

Jacobsen: By “imaginary crime,” for instance, let’s say you are an ex-Muslim. You do not believe in Allah. You do not believe in God. You do not follow the precepts of Islam, like the Five Pillars. You don’t believe in the Quran or Muhammad as a prophet. You don’t believe he flew to heaven on a winged horse. You don’t believe in paying zakat, etc.

So, you don’t believe you can offend something you think doesn’t exist? The idea of blasphemy is to offend a religious entity. More accurately, it means you’ve offended someone’s religious feelings. Because you can’t offend a religious belief itself—it’s an abstraction. When people say “you’ve offended religious feelings,” they are talking about offending a person. That’s more accurate.

But these are religious laws, and religious laws are based on a belief in a god or gods. Suppose you reject a belief in a god. In that case, you also reject the premise for believing that offending God constitutes a crime. In some countries, however, religious laws, like blasphemy laws, are imposed on non-religious people. These laws are extended to cover so-called “cyber blasphemy” or blasphemy in general, leading to jail sentences.

A famous example is Mubarak Bala, a Nigerian atheist. He was jailed for about half of a decade over a one-sentence Facebook post that mocked Muhammad. The case demonstrates how these laws are weaponized, even in modern contexts, to suppress dissent or non-religious beliefs.

He was the president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria. So, that’s one particular case that comes to mind. But there are many cases like that. There are countries—maybe 10 or so—where, if you are an atheist, the punishment is death simply for believing that or for having a lack of belief. 

Yes, that’s what I mean by “imaginary.” From the point of view of someone who doesn’t believe, these are imaginary crimes. But they don’t have the privilege to impose oppressive laws. It’s the religious communities within theocracies that impose their legal identity on the non-religious.

There are different contexts for this. There are different types and degrees of corruption, and corruption exists everywhere. Liberals have their style, and conservatives have their style. Religious and non-religious people have their styles. It depends. Autocracies and democracies both struggle with corruption, especially during wartime.

Zelinskyi: Yes, everywhere. To provide some context, in Ukraine, I wanted to explain why I asked about “imaginary crimes.” For Ukraine, it’s a distant problem. We have legislation that I wouldn’t describe as soft. Still, it’s very difficult to sentence someone, even in obvious cases where a judge is caught with money or there’s video evidence. They can hire a lot of advocates, and so on and prolong the case hearings for years.

That’s why I’ve heard, even from some Canadians or Americans, that Ukraine is a place where they can come to have fun, drink alcohol, and so on. They know there’s no strict punishment for that kind of thing. As for the situations you mentioned about imaginary crimes like blasphemy, nobody really cares about that here. Ukrainians don’t take it seriously. We’re cheerful people.

Jacobsen: You even have underground hookah bars.

Zelinskyi: Do you like hookahs? 

Jacobsen: I tried them a couple of times when I was there. The whole point wasn’t to report on the war but to get a sense of the culture. I tried to participate in daily life—got a Vodafone number, used WhatsApp and Telegram, and learned two or three words that could get me through most interactions. They’d say something at the grocery store or Vodafone place, and I’d tap my card. Then, they’d smile and say, “Oh, such a polite boy,” and off I’d go.

Zelinskyi: Ukrainians are friendly, and if you learn a few words in Ukrainian, they’ll be happy to help.

Jacobsen: You occasionally run into a babushka who tells you her life story as an orphan. The air raid alarms are going off, you hear an explosion three kilometres away, and she’s committed to telling her story until she’s finished.

Zelinskyi: Did she described her life to you in Ukrainian without a translator?

Jacobsen: I used Google Translate to try to understand, but her whole thing was, “This is Putin’s era. It’s just like the old days. Nothing changes with those people. That’s how they are.” It’s very Eastern European. It’s fatalistic.

North Americans, particularly Americans, have that sort of arrogant, “can-do” attitude—if there’s a problem, we can solve it, and we need to resolve it. The reality lies somewhere in between. Many problems are probably intractable. Still, while they may not seem solvable, many things have solutions if you’re willing to invest the time.

It’s interesting to see how these cultural differences play out. You get a sense that people are working with what they have. That’s it. Go to a small Canadian town, then to a small Ukrainian town. What’s the difference? Not much. They all have someone they hate, and they all have their gripes about the government or their local issues.

And yes, they all have their struggles. Since Ukraine is such an older country than Canada, you go to different places, and you can tell. Some people live in an early 20th-century context—like the 1910s or 1920s. You’ll see a farmer with big, arthritic hands, wearing worn-out clothes, whipping cattle with a stick to get them across the road.

You’re driving in your car because you got lost and are trying to navigate through checkpoints in Sumy. Then suddenly, you get to Poltava, a semi-modern city relative to Canada. It’s a completely different context. Most people in Canada, especially Vancouver or Toronto, haven’t been out of the city.

Many people in Vancouver, Toronto, or other big cities have probably spent 95% of their lives in the city and its outskirts. That’s most of what they know. You get that same sense driving around Ukraine.

Es, the same thing. Ukraine is such a big country, especially in Europe. Travelling from London to Paris is a significant trip for a British person. For me, travelling from the suburbs to downtown Vancouver by train and bus takes three and a half hours. It’s exhausting.

Zelinskyi: Canada is 9 million square kilometres—15 times larger than Ukraine. Ukraine’s reasons for limited travel are different. Of course, it’s obvious why people haven’t travelled much since 2022. However, before 2017, we didn’t have visa-free European access.

You had to pay for visas and submit many documents, and there was no guarantee you’d get approved. For people from villages, it wasn’t even a consideration. They didn’t have money. Salaries in Ukraine are small—many earn only a few hundred dollars per month. For example, my parents are teachers. They’ve worked in schools for the last 30 years. My father earns about $600 monthly, and my mother earns around $450.

Jacobsen: Is that paid every two weeks?

Zelinskyi: They get paid every two weeks, but my father’s and mother’s monthly salaries are $600 and $450, respectively.

It’s enough for them because they live in a small town. They have their own house, and they don’t spend much. So they buy some food, household items, and so on. It’s okay for them, but it’s not enough to make a trip to Europe when you need to pay €30 for a meal. For them, that’s not acceptable.

Most people in Kyiv, though, have salaries of $1,000 to $1,500. They have more opportunities, and life in Ukraine is cheap. That’s why $1,500 is a good salary for us. With that, we can buy almost anything except for cars or buildings because they are expensive. Cars aren’t produced in Ukraine, so their prices are determined by automakers, and the same is true for property, like apartments.

I hope that explains things, and I’m sorry for the long answer. The issue with Russia is different. Over 90% of the Russian population has never been outside Russia—except maybe to Belarus or a vacation in Egypt. They think they are prosperous, that everyone lives like that, and they don’t see any issues with Putin.

They don’t make the straightforward connection: Russia sells a lot of oil, gas, and other resources—so why are we living in such poverty? They don’t think about it. They assume everyone lives like they do. That’s one of the reasons they believe in Putin and support him—because of extensive propaganda. They believe what they see on TV every evening.

I don’t know if it’s historical or cultural. Still, even when my grandpa was in Russia, he said Russians drank vodka a lot—it’s a lifestyle. I’m not talking about Moscow or big cities, of course. But in rural Russia, it’s common to come home from work at a plant or factory, drink vodka, and watch television. If you watch television for years and are exposed to only one perspective, you start to believe it.

Do you have any other questions for me, or is that it?

Jacobsen: I have a question regarding corruption—Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index—if we check Ukraine, its rank is 104. It has gone up by 36 ranks. That’s 104 out of 180 countries. This is data up to 2023.

Of 180 countries, Ukraine was ranked 103, and it’s now gone up 30+ ranks. With further efforts, Ukraine will likely move into double-digit rankings, so it’s not as bad as before. In contrast, Russia is ranked 141 and has dropped from 2022 to 2023. It’s been on a downward slide since 2020. That’s the general condition.

Regarding the United States and Canada—certainly. The United States is ranked 24th, but it may be worse with 2025 approaching and many disgruntled people. Canada is ranked 12th and has been reasonably stable.

The country that ranked number one in 2023 was Denmark. Denmark is the least corrupt society on a relative metric. But on an absolute metric, in terms of the Corruption Perception Index, Denmark ranks 90 out of 100. Few countries get an “A,” and probably no country qualifies as an “A+.”

They’re looking at social justice, economic justice, human rights, peace, and security. So, Denmark is number one, followed by Canada, the United States, Ukraine, and Russia.

Ukraine is moving up, Russia is moving down, and Canada and the United States appear to have stabilized somewhat over the last few years. 

Zelinskyi: Corruption in Russia is like oil in a car engine—almost everything is done with bribes. In some cases, they tried to fight corruption, but in the end, everyone was too frightened to do anything without bribes. In some regions, their economy completely stopped because their way of doing business or running the state economy depended on corruption.

Only if the leadership changes  their economy could shift away from this corruption dependence. Right now, corruption might be helping them to function.

Jacobsen: As for the most corrupt country in the world, according to Transparency International, the most corrupt countries are Somalia, Syria, South Sudan, Venezuela, Yemen, North Korea, Nicaragua, Haiti, Equatorial Guinea, Turkmenistan, Libya, Tajikistan, Sudan, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Comoros, Chad, Burundi, Afghanistan, Eritrea, São Tomé and Príncipe, Cambodia, Iraq, and Honduras, and so on.  Thank you so much for your time. 

Zelinskyi: Thanks. 

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