⚠️ Violation Context

🏛️ About

Public Control Platform#

Admitted to two consecutive forming assemblies; one delegate seated

The Public Control Platform (HromKontrol) is a Dnipro-based civic organization registered in March 2015. It is documented on CrimeaWatch because it was admitted by the High Qualification Commission of Judges to the assemblies forming the Public Integrity Council in both 2023 and 2025, and on each occasion put forward the same member, Kostiantyn Smolov — seated in the third composition, nominated again but not elected to the fourth — for the body whose Indicators of Integrity treat visits to temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory in the same terms as visits to the Russian Federation.

Why This Profile Exists#

The Platform’s involvement is small in scale but unambiguous in character. It applied to take part in forming the Council, was vetted and admitted by published state acts — decision No. 40/zp-23 of 27 July 2023 and decision No. 138/zp-25 of 21 July 2025, both identifying it by registration code — and nominated a delegate each time.

The second application is the more significant of the two. By July 2025 Kostiantyn Smolov had already served a full term on the Council, through the period in which the Indicators were applied to judges with Crimea-related connections. The Platform put him forward again with that experience behind it; the assembly did not elect him.

Repeat Participation as Endorsement#

An organization that takes part once may reasonably say it did not know how the body would operate. An organization that applies again, and puts forward the same person after a completed term, cannot.

Paragraph 1.5 was adopted in its revised form on 16 December 2020, four and a half years before the second nomination. Its exception for travel undertaken out of urgent need — visits to close relatives, resolution of property matters — presupposes the default rule rather than removing it: absent urgent need, a journey to occupied Crimea is assessed as a journey to Russia would be.

Ukrainian law does not permit that equivalence. The Constitution defines Crimea as an integral part of Ukraine (Articles 2, 73, 133–134), and the Law on the Temporarily Occupied Territory (No. 1207-VII, 2014) establishes a legal regime for the peninsula distinct from that of a foreign state.

What This Profile Does Not Claim#

CrimeaWatch documents no statement by the Public Control Platform recognizing Crimea as Russian territory, and none is alleged here.

Delegation is not a vote. The Platform’s delegate voted on the Council’s conclusions during the third composition; the Platform did not. What is documented is the act of application and nomination, established by published state acts and the PIC’s own rosters, and the absence of any public objection to the methodology applied.

Nomination Record#

In the assembly that formed the Council’s fourth composition in 2025, the organization put forward one candidate and none were seated. It shared no nominee with any other organization in that cycle. Across the assembly as a whole, twelve organizations submitted 41 nominations covering 24 distinct people for 20 seats, and 14 of the 18 members elected were nominated by two organizations at once.

Cross-nomination is permitted by the procedure and is not in itself irregular. It is recorded here because the authority of the Council’s Indicators of Integrity rests on the breadth of the body that adopts them, and the published candidate tables are the only public measure of that breadth. See Who Vetted the Vetters for the full arithmetic.

Response and Corrections#

The Public Control Platform may submit a response or a correction request to [email protected]. Submissions are assessed against the underlying sources. Where a statement on this page is shown to be inaccurate, incomplete or out of date, the profile is amended and the correction is recorded.

CrimeaWatch does not publish responses verbatim and gives no undertaking to reproduce them. What a verified response changes is the content of this profile.

Summary#

The Public Control Platform is documented on this site as an organization admitted by published decisions of the High Qualification Commission of Judges to the assemblies forming the Public Integrity Council in two consecutive cycles, and as the delegating organization of Kostiantyn Smolov in the third composition.

A civic organization whose stated purpose is public oversight has twice sought to supply a member to a body whose Indicators of Integrity treat travel to temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory in the same terms as travel to the Russian Federation, and has not publicly addressed the contradiction.

ℹ️ What Else We Know

👥 Leadership

📅 Activity Timeline

📋 Documented Instances