Negative Integrity Conclusion on Dziuba Oleh Anatoliiovych: Crimea Connection in Judicial Assessment

What Happened#

On June 8, 2024, the Public Integrity Council approved a negative integrity conclusion on Dziuba Oleh Anatoliiovych (Дзюба Олег Анатолійович), a candidate for a position at Economic Court of Kharkiv Oblast. The conclusion was adopted by 17 of 20 members.

The PIC treated the judge’s wife’s registration as an entrepreneur in occupied Sevastopol (2016) and her acquisition of Russian documents (passport, SNILS, INN from 2014) as evidence of collaboration with Russian authorities. The PIC also flagged travel patterns through Crimean routes and to Belarus as indicators of using uncontrolled border crossings to access occupied territories.

The Crimea-related element was cited as a direct basis for the negative conclusion.

The Crimea Connection#

Using information from business aggregators, it was established that a person named “Dziuba Svetlana Vladimirovna” registered as an individual entrepreneur in Sevastopol on August 16, 2016, i.e., after the occupation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russian forces, with the type of activity “production of other outerwear”. According to the data, Dziuba S.V. in 2014 (not earlier than July 2014) obtained a Russian passport and an individual personal account insurance number (in Russian - SNILS), which is valid.

This quote demonstrates the PIC’’s implicit recognition of Russian jurisdiction by treating business registration and document acquisition in occupied Sevastopol as legitimate administrative acts that create integrity concerns for Ukrainian officials.

Context#

The Public Integrity Council was established in 2016 as part of post-2014 judicial reform in Ukraine. Its mandate was to assist in vetting judges and judicial candidates based on integrity and professional ethics. While formally an advisory body, its conclusions carried significant weight in qualification proceedings and could directly affect judicial careers.

Under Ukrainian law, Crimea is a temporarily occupied territory under the Law on Ensuring the Rights and Freedoms of Citizens and the Legal Regime of the Temporarily Occupied Territory (2014). The Constitution of Ukraine affirms Crimea as an integral part of Ukraine whose status cannot be altered without an all-Ukrainian referendum.

By treating Crimea-related connections as integrity risks within a formal assessment framework, the PIC applies an operational logic that treats Crimea as Russian-administered territory — reproducing the same premise that was formally codified in the December 16, 2020 revised Indicators.

Voters#

Verification#

• Official PIC conclusion document dated June 8, 2024, available on the Council’s public website.
• Electronic voting record confirming the vote count and participating members.