You can treat the anti-corruption reform in Ukraine however you wish. Love it or hate it. Know much about it or nothing. But this story will definitely not leave you indifferent. It's very catchy and alive. A documentary about the lawyer who wanted to become a judge in the newly established Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine. The key character and movie director were actually professors at my University:) Everybody respected them a lot as lawyers and teachers. It was unusual to seem them in the movie:) The story itself has quite touchy thoughts of the insider. Good questions and reflections. It's a subjective story, but it's amazing to have it and spur discussions and thoughts. It's kind of movie after which you are puzzled with questions and want to share it with friends.
5 Reviews
A must-see move for everyone who cares about Ukraine!
anatoliygbizhko27 March 2019
By Anatoliy Bizhko, president and founder, "Partnership for Corruption Free Ukraine".
Verdict 19 tackles a charged topic and should be watched by everyone who cares about Ukraine. It is perfectly timed , premiering in the week before the first round of Ukraine's presidential election, an always larger-than-life contest that is perhaps the only hope - however naïve - that is left for Ukraine's long-suffering citizens to improve their lives. It focuses on the process of selecting judges to Ukraine's anti-corruption court (the ACC) - an institution created at the insistence of Ukraine's foreign donors. Objective, dispassionate, and fact-driven, Verdict 19 is infused with respect for the rule of law and for those who follow it. Verdict 19 asks viewers to think, to probe, and to resist making quick conclusions.
The movie depicts Oleksandr Merezhko's quest to become an ACC judge. One of several hundred candidates, he - a well-known legal scholar and professor at one of Kyiv's universities, submits to complicated, multi-phase testing process by which 39 ACC judges will be selected among several hundred applicants. Oleksandr is portrayed as a modest, unassuming, erudite, willing to forego job offers at foreign universities in order to remain in a 'more dynamic' Ukraine. Like many others, he is hopeful that the creation of the ACC would diminish corruption in Europe's most corrupt - and one of its poorest - countries. It has been weakened by 25 years of post-Soviet Union stagnation and looting by corrupt elites, and - during the last five years - Putin's regime that annexed Crimea and destabilized eastern Ukraine. Given that the ACC is designed to an independent, honest judicial institution aimed at punishing corrupt officials - Oleksandr appears to be a near-perfect candidate to be an ACC judge.
Except that he doesn't get selected, and the movie shows how and why he fails. Masterfully filmed by Slavik Bihun, himself another known legal scholar who also failed to get selected for the ACC court, Verdict 19 shows that the ACC selection process is likely corrupt and manipulated by the very system that the creation of ACC is meant to change. As the movie unfolds one gets a feeling that the unhappy end is preordained. The movie is brilliantly paced, punctuated by jarring siren signals when information questioning the sanctity of selection process flashes on the screen. Less than an hour in length, Verdict 19 feels like a very dynamic, well-edited, engaging documentary, impartially unpacking facts and urging viewers to draw their conclusions.
Verdict 19 stirs difficult emotions. For those that know what Ukraine is like but choose to ignore the facts, it probably feels like a one-sided criticism of positive changes. For those that know what Ukraine is like but want to change the status quo, it is a story of yet another painful setback.
The film is hugely symbolic, describing a failed attempt by a prominent legal scholar who comes home to his very corrupt country to chance becoming an anti-corruption judge instead of staying abroad. But, like Ukraine in its fight against corruption, he fails, not because there are other, worthier candidates, but because a rigged selection process, that gives selection committee absolute discretion to judge candidate's work as it sees fit, is likely designed to reject candidates like him. Thus, the idea of the Court itself, and its impartiality, independence from the rest of judicial system, are compromised. Those who are going to be its judges are handicapped by faulty the selection process that undermines their authority.
The film also artfully depicts how easy it is to manipulate the process if the underlying goal is to achieve a preordained result. Objectivity is shrewdly replaced with subjectivity disguised by purported anonymity, hidden by officialdom of deciders, sealed by their refusal to explain their decision, contrary to the rules that govern the selection committee's activity.
Viewers from Ukraine will easily see their fate in Mr. Merezhko's failure to get selected - when they didn't get in into the university because they refused to pay a bribe, when they were refused treatment in a hospital because they didn't pay the doctor under the table, or when someone who committed a crime against them bribed the judge and wasn't punished. Verdict 19 thus makes a viewer wonder if there is any hope left for her. After all, Mr. Merezhko, a well-known legal scholar and professor, fails to get selected into the ACC, a high-profile institution created at the insistence of the US and other foreign countries, in their quest to assist Ukraine to fight its rampant and murderous corruption. If even he is mistreated, what can an ordinary Ukrainian hope for? Another, even larger question looms - if Mr. Merezhko's quixotic and futile quest likely means that the ACC is in fact stillborn, like so many other 'reforms' passed in Ukraine, why should Ukraine even try to develop and implement reforms, just to see them fail again and again?
The movie is called Verdict 19, for the year when the ACC selection took place, but the verdict it gives to the system is just as valid in any other year. That said, the bitterness left after watching Mr. Merezhko walk out from the hearing where his appeal was summarily rejected without any review of his results is especially strong this year, the year of Ukraine's presidential election when the current president is running behind in the polls, trailing a political neophyte, Mr. Zelenskyj, a comedic actor and producer best known to Ukrainians for his role as a high school history teacher-turned-President Goloborodko in the movie "Servant of the People." If Mr. Zelenskyj wins, it would be because Ukrainians, having lived through a quarter of a century of travails like those in Verdict 19, will be fooled into thinking that Mr. Zelenskyj is in fact Goloborodko, and, once elected, he will serve the people and make injustice that Mr. Merezhko - and they - experience disappear. Except, unlike Verdict 19, "Servant of the People" is pure fiction. And every thinking Ukrainian - and those abroad who care about Ukraine, is well advised to watch Verdict 19, and then to do all they can to ensure that the events in Verdict 19 are no longer possible in 2020 and beyond, no matter who becomes Ukraine's next president. Because neither Mr. Zelenskiy, nor any other President, can overturn Verdict 19 and restore justice. Only the ones who, like Mr. Merezhko says at the end of Verdict 19, have nothing to lose except our chains, can and must do so.
Verdict 19: Drama, Irony, and Hope ...
Halyna_Vynohradska7 April 2019
Warning: Spoilers
In nowadays turbulent time, when virtual reality (social networks, tvimages, cinema characters, etc.) so intensely transcends our real life starting to replace it, the opposite process takes place: real people become film's heroes, and life itself adjusts the script, so that development of events cannot be foreseen even by a most professional scriptwriter...
This is what happened to the character in the new documentary entitled Verdict 19 by Ukrainian director and legal scholar Vyacheslav (Slavik) Bihun, avant-premiered on 26 March 2019 in Kyiv. A successful and well-known Ukrainian scholar and university professor, doctor of laws Oleksandr Merezhko returns to Ukraine to take part in the contest for the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) as he believes in the possibility of positive change and wants to serve his country. As per film's author, the film was conceived as a triumph of justice story, an illustration of new positive changes within the judiciary. But the life made its corrections: the protagonist faces a range of subjective factors and does not win in the contest.
The film has been already reviewed by some lawyers in terms of its content, legal issues as well as the importance of the issue raised to resolve the fate of the country. I would like to dwell on a slightly different aspect: "hows" and by what creative means the author tells the story to the viewer, the story which does not have Hollywood special effects and action-like scenes, but nevertheless keeps the viewer's attention throughout the screen time.
Perhaps, the first thing to note, as a leading feature of the film overall and that of the character in particular, is sincerity. From the first minutes you feel sympathetic to him and thereafter you live with him every episode. The viewer is taken to a lecture and classes by Professor Merezhko, to a hall of an Academic Council for the defence of dissertations at a scholarly institution, to conversations with his colleagues at a university's department and cafeteria, to the presentation of a scholarly publication. The viewer also takes a walk with him in his daily paths through streets of Kyiv, observing seasonal changes of nature (as from the preparation and submission of documents to the announcement of the contest's results it took more than six months) as well as the daily life of the big city. We are also touched by a secret, i.a. a visit to a perinatal center where we hear the first public "sneeze" of his newborn daughter. Dr. Merezhko looks very natural and organic in the frame. It seems that he simply lives his life, completely forgetting about the camera filming him. And this testifies to the high skill of the film's author, the deep trust of the character towards him.
Also, along with Dr.Merezhko as a contestant to the HACC, an average citizen has a chance to visit and witness the location, working mannersand persons of such a high-ranking and little-known body as the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine (HQCJ). We see faces of those responsible for the creation of the Anti-Corruption Court and the selection of judges to the judiciary as a whole. And as the film ends we know their names.
I would also like to note the logical structuring of the film and the smooth and motivated transitions from one episode to another. In particular, the author coherently and naturally brings the viewer from the shots with exhibition of drawings to the theme of the Revolution of Dignity in the university's corridors to a documentary shorts of a memoir of real events at the Maidan, and then to a full-fledged scene of the commemorative prayer of the Heavenly Hundred. And then from the streets where helmets of the fallen street protestors are solemnly depicted to the depths of the soul, that is a hospital where we visit Dr.Merezhko's wounded brother serving in the military...
The smooth chain of episodes goes on: we bid farewell to the wounded "Beast" (a call-name of the soldier), leaving his hospital's chamber, for a moment looking at the calendar on the door. And we witness the Mount Sermon of Jesus Christ with an illustration. And then we are taken to the corridor of the HQCJ where we read in large text (on the whole wall!) the Prayer of a Judge. "... judge me as God. I judged as a man", - these final words of the mentioned Prayer enter deep into my memory and still resonate. What if all judges, all officials, and eventually all of us, everyone in his or her own place, always did according to the law of God, or at least keep to the spirit and letters of the adopted legislative acts of a human society and moral principles...
Being himself a participant in the contest, alike Dr.Merezhko facing a rejection, and observing and feeling it from the within, the film's author is very delicately weavingirony into the canvas of the film, sometimes resorting to burlesque notes.
So the first frames of the HQCJ meeting are accompanied by boring buzz of a fly that later clings to a thick book of laws... Warning siren soundsaccompany the author's titles such as "Anonymity", "Transparency", etc., each time mentally switching the content of visually presented definitions to the opposite... Three identical shoes of passengers in the underground, a painted pig on the glass of a cafe as the character watches through it, the figure "9" croppedfrom the figure "8" in the interior of the university department signifying the change of year, paintings by Maria Prymachenko with her fantastic beasts in the HQCJ halls, these are funny and ironic author's strokes, which for a short moment pass into sarcastic laughter,- the applause and the noise of a stadium when announcing the final verdict. The drama has turned into a farce... The final chord of this sad farce is that the "Monkey rides the Beast" (by painter Maria Prymachenko)... Same as in one well-knownfairy tale we know from the childhood, "Might makes right"...
As the glass doors open-close to fairy-tale music, behind them we see an empty corridor ... it's sad ... but somehow it is as if it was so expected... so it's not tragic. It is our usual reality.
It is our reality in which we witness prayers on the wall, oaths on paper but not their fulfilment in life; where the screen character has a chance to become the head of the 40-million European country...
But life goes on. Children are born. And there is hope that everything will be fine... That everything will be there for us!
*********
The features I outlined are not more than a few strokes to the "portrait" of Vyacheslav Bihun's "Verdict 19" documentary. In fact, there are still a lot of interesting things which I deliberately omit, to keep some intrigue. (In particular, the confluence between the failure of two fellow countrymen: the outstanding lawyer of the early twentieth century Dr.Leon Petrazyckiand our character Dr.Merezhko in this contest, and many more).
Like most of the films by director Vyacheslav Bihun, the "Verdict 19" does not provide ready answers. It rather documents the current moment, raises questions, draws attention to the pressing issues in the society, searching for ways to solve them.
Halyna Vynohradska, Scholar at the Institute of Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Lviv)
Halyna Vynohradska, Scholar at the Institute of Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Lviv)
Something very special
robertkhorolskyy17 April 2019
I saw the movie in Kyiv when presented to public for the first time.
I've never seen any movies of such kind before, and it was quite special experience. Two things impressed me. First, how key theme and its main threads were supported and emphasized by pictures and views of our daily life - streets, people, etc. At some point I began to pay to this aspect even more attention than to the main story. In addition, I realised that the story was filmed just few months ago and happened simultaneously with events of my life. Second, key theme is accompanied by highly qualified legal comments with reference to well-known legal principles having roots in ancient Roman law. They established big scale for the story and provided it with some kind of eternity: in fact, it is a well-known story seen by many societies.
For me the movie is not yet another piece of anti-corruption propaganda. I'd like to see it as evidence of the Ukrainian way to rule of law, - extremely contradictory, complicated and painful.
Stuchka's Children and Grandchildren and Disrespect to Law in "Verdict 19"
wnech2 March 2020
The "Verdict 19" documentary by renowned director and jurist Dr Vyacheslav Bihun, a contender for the "Ukrainian Oscar" - "Golden Dzyga" (2020), may look as a story about a single case in the life of a lawyer who lost the contest for the High Anti-Corruption Court in Ukraine. However, this film is about how the "Stuchka's children" and "Stuchka's grandchildren" continue to mock the law in Ukraine, guided by the clear and hidden interests of "the powers that be of this world".
"Stuchka's children" ("Stuchka's kids") is a term associated with a well-known insulting phrase in Slavic languages that expresses disdain for offspring with a dubious reputation. It was invented by a Russian publicist who chose the name of the founder of "Soviet law" P. I. Stuchka (1865-1932) to identify the qualities of Soviet lawyers.
Peteris Stuchka at one time had laid the theoretical foundations under the immense Bolshevik machine of terror and violence which ruled the one sixth territory of the globe. He "brilliantly" argued that the "Soviet law" should be guided not by the previous legal tradition and history, by the "spirit of the laws", by "justice", but by the party ideology of the "winners" (the Bolsheviks). And the Soviet lawyers, aware and unaware of this, were guided in their actions by this very idea, which is why they should be called "Stuchka's children". These lawyers both quietly and frankly neglected the "letter of the law" for the sake of the "triumph of Soviet law," but in fact disregarded the age-old principles of law for the sake of the party's expediency at stake. What about "adversarial trial" or "presumption of innocence"? No way, these are bourgeois fictions!
However, not only lawyers but also most of the Homo Sovietus became "Stuckha's children". And their major "birth defect" is the irreparable hidden disregard for the law.
But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the "Stuckha's children" did not go down in history but they began to create and reproduce themselves with the deep hatred towards "bourgeois law" and ... to procreate "Stuchka's grandchildren." And these "grandchildren" were born not only at newly created "law faculties", former "meat and dairy colleges", but also at quite respected universities and "professional" institutes under different branches of power of the post-Soviet republics. And their main "birth defect" is yet again the irreparable hidden disregard for the law.
And naturally here comes the Revolution of Dignity, the killings on the Maidan, the change of power and the expectations of the citizens to replace the rotten power and, above all, the judicial system.
Long passed the "littering lustration" of judges, long procedures for the formation of legislative foundations of anti-corruption bodies, the emergence of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP). Hurrah, Victory?
Under pressure from the civic society and Western partners, the authorities are also forced to form the High Anti-Corruption Court. The very link that will launch the entire anti-corruption judicial procedure to cleanse the country of "Stuchka's children and grandchildren." However, it's not as simple...
The film's character is a professor, doctor of law, enters the contest for the status of judge of the High Anti-Corruption Court and ... loses it!
Designed as a success story, the documentary becomes an "accusation film": the High Qualifications Commission of Judges (VKKS) changes the "rules of the game" during the contest, showing an unhealthy disregard for the law, hiding behind procedures and collective irresponsibility.
True, it cannot be said that the winning candidates are unworthy or knowingly incompetent, but the film questions the integrity of the contest itself and its "judges".
Also, as the discussion of the film and the situation at the Commission show, the problem is well known within the world of legal professionals in Ukraine. Its effects can be now felt by everyone.
And here is the top question: how much longer will the legal system in Ukraine be in the sphere of influence of "Stuchka's children"? How many more revolutions, the Maidans, lustrations and contests do we need to get through to have the rule of law in Ukraine?
by Vitaliy NECHYPORENKO
Ph.D., Research Fellow, H. S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, Ukraine
"Stuchka's children" ("Stuchka's kids") is a term associated with a well-known insulting phrase in Slavic languages that expresses disdain for offspring with a dubious reputation. It was invented by a Russian publicist who chose the name of the founder of "Soviet law" P. I. Stuchka (1865-1932) to identify the qualities of Soviet lawyers.
Peteris Stuchka at one time had laid the theoretical foundations under the immense Bolshevik machine of terror and violence which ruled the one sixth territory of the globe. He "brilliantly" argued that the "Soviet law" should be guided not by the previous legal tradition and history, by the "spirit of the laws", by "justice", but by the party ideology of the "winners" (the Bolsheviks). And the Soviet lawyers, aware and unaware of this, were guided in their actions by this very idea, which is why they should be called "Stuchka's children". These lawyers both quietly and frankly neglected the "letter of the law" for the sake of the "triumph of Soviet law," but in fact disregarded the age-old principles of law for the sake of the party's expediency at stake. What about "adversarial trial" or "presumption of innocence"? No way, these are bourgeois fictions!
However, not only lawyers but also most of the Homo Sovietus became "Stuckha's children". And their major "birth defect" is the irreparable hidden disregard for the law.
But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the "Stuckha's children" did not go down in history but they began to create and reproduce themselves with the deep hatred towards "bourgeois law" and ... to procreate "Stuchka's grandchildren." And these "grandchildren" were born not only at newly created "law faculties", former "meat and dairy colleges", but also at quite respected universities and "professional" institutes under different branches of power of the post-Soviet republics. And their main "birth defect" is yet again the irreparable hidden disregard for the law.
- Driving under the influence? Not a problem if you have a pass of a people's representative, prosecutor or judge.
- Legalization of self-constructed premises, seizure of someone else's property? Sure, if you pay the right people within the judiciary.
- Need a wording in the law for business preferences? It's just a question of price!
- Need a Supreme or Constitutional Court ruling? Find leverage!
And naturally here comes the Revolution of Dignity, the killings on the Maidan, the change of power and the expectations of the citizens to replace the rotten power and, above all, the judicial system.
Long passed the "littering lustration" of judges, long procedures for the formation of legislative foundations of anti-corruption bodies, the emergence of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP). Hurrah, Victory?
Under pressure from the civic society and Western partners, the authorities are also forced to form the High Anti-Corruption Court. The very link that will launch the entire anti-corruption judicial procedure to cleanse the country of "Stuchka's children and grandchildren." However, it's not as simple...
The film's character is a professor, doctor of law, enters the contest for the status of judge of the High Anti-Corruption Court and ... loses it!
Designed as a success story, the documentary becomes an "accusation film": the High Qualifications Commission of Judges (VKKS) changes the "rules of the game" during the contest, showing an unhealthy disregard for the law, hiding behind procedures and collective irresponsibility.
True, it cannot be said that the winning candidates are unworthy or knowingly incompetent, but the film questions the integrity of the contest itself and its "judges".
Also, as the discussion of the film and the situation at the Commission show, the problem is well known within the world of legal professionals in Ukraine. Its effects can be now felt by everyone.
And here is the top question: how much longer will the legal system in Ukraine be in the sphere of influence of "Stuchka's children"? How many more revolutions, the Maidans, lustrations and contests do we need to get through to have the rule of law in Ukraine?
by Vitaliy NECHYPORENKO
Ph.D., Research Fellow, H. S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, Ukraine
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