Center’s journalist not allowed to attend hearing on election of court’s head

Mykola Mirnyj, journalist of the Human Rights Information Center, was not allowed into the courtroom, where the case on lawfulness of re-election of Volodymyr Babenko as the head of the Court of Appeal of Cherkasy region for the third consecutive term was considered.

As the journalist reports, September 30, he was not allowed to attend the hearing of the Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeal, where he had intended to hear and record the arguments of the parties of this notorious case.

As Mirnyj notes, it was impossible to move for taking videos and photos before the court hearing on that day as the case was scheduled for 9:00 and the court registry started to work at the same time.

“I explained the problem to the administrator, and he took my press card to show it to the panel of judges. After that, secretary Kateryna Pohorelaya invited the representatives of the Court of Appeal to the room, but… I was not allowed to enter,” the journalist said.

Subsequently, the secretary told the journalist that the case would be considered in the written proceedings.

The journalist believes that the Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeal created artificial conditions in order to prevent public consideration of the abovementioned case.