The Ethics Council has interviewed candidates for the position of a member of the High Council of Justice, including judge of the Kyiv District Administrative Court Nataliya Panchenko. She lives in an apartment bought by her mother, but the judge cannot explain where the money for this purchase came from. In 2013, the judge bought her daughter an expensive car, which she did not have enough money for. Panchenko explained that she was saving on food and housing because the state provided her with all this. Her daughter earned her first million after graduating from university, Slidstvo.Info reports.
On June 4, 2024, the Ethics Council interviewed three candidates for the position of members of the High Council of Justice nominated by the President of Ukraine. One of these candidates was judge of the Kyiv District Administrative Court Nataliya Panchenko.
Judge Nataliya Panchenko / screenshot from the interview broadcast on Ukrainian Judiciary
The first thing that interested the members of the Ethics Council was two apartments in Kyiv that Panchenko’s relatives bought in 2010 and 2012. The judge still uses one of them, while she lived in the other for a long time.
The apartment where the judge lives now was bought by her mother with money given to her by her family. Panchenko argues that she cannot ask her mother where she got the money for such purchases.
“A lot of time has passed since we bought this apartment. It is not quite right to ask my mother for certain documents to confirm how she was financially helped to buy the apartment,” Panchenko says.
There were also questions about the origin of the money Panchenko’s sister had to buy the apartment where the judge had lived for a long time. According to information from the tax office, the judge’s sister’s income from 1998 to 2012 was 628,000 hryvnias ($123,844), and this would not have been enough to buy a new apartment. Panchenko says she provided the Ethics Council with documents confirming that her sister had enough money to buy an apartment.
Interestingly, although these apartments are used by the candidate and her sister, they are registered to their mother, who lives in Cherkasy Oblast. The mother has not lived in these apartments since they were purchased. Panchenko could not explain why the property was registered to her mother, who does not use it.
In 2013, Panchenko’s daughter bought an Audi Q7 for 680,000 hryvnias ($84,352). This car was used by the judge. Panchenko explained that she bought the car with family savings, but in fact, the judge would not have had enough money to buy it, as indicated in her declaration.
“I know how to save money,” Panchenko said, adding that she did not spend money on housing because she was provided with it by the state, and ate the rations her military husband received.
Shortly after buying a new car, Panchenko’s husband bought a motorcycle for $470 when its market value was $7,100.
The Ethics Council also found that the judge sold a Toyota RAV4 for 100 hryvnias ($2.49). Panchenko explained that the car was sold so cheaply because it was badly damaged after an accident.
After graduating in 2015, Panchenko’s daughter earned her first million by providing legal services, and in 2017 she earned more than 2.5 million hryvnias ($94,102). Panchenko’s daughter immediately withdrew all this money from the account in cash. The judge says that her daughter did not trust banks at the time, and earned so much money just by doing her job.
Despite her daughter’s successful work in the legal field, Judge Panchenko did not know that her daughter had obtained a lawyer’s license and failed to indicate this in her declaration.
