The Supreme Court ruled, but Mayor Sadovyi and his officials ignore: the history of non-enforcement of the decision to return seized land to the Lviv community

Leopolis.news has repeatedly written about the negligent attitude of the mayor of Lviv and his subordinates to the performance of their official duties. In particular, it was said that the City Hall officials blatantly neglected their authority to return the two hectares of reserve land illegally seized to the territorial community of Lviv.

We would like to remind our readers that in Lviv, near the intersection of Vynnytsia and Kholodna streets, local residents (six families) illegally seized two hectares of land belonging to the Lviv territorial community, fenced the seized land and are growing vegetables that they sell on Lviv markets. It is possible that not only vegetables are grown there, as the seized territory is very carefully fenced. Activist Valentyna Polishchuk said that brave detectives from the Shevchenkivskyi district police station were whining when she asked them to find out what was being grown on the seized land, and the patrol police refused to enter the seized territory to check. Moreover, the patrol policemen fined Valentyna Polishchuk for the call and ordered her not to bother them in the future.

Lviv officials – Andriy Sadovyi, Lyubomyr Zubach, Yevhen Boyko, Andriy Moskalenko, Iryna Dzhuryk, Mykola Behei and Oksana Gadyo – are solidly ignoring their official duties. By virtue of their powers, they should have immediately, several years ago, when residents of Kholodna and Vynnytsia streets reported the seizure of the land of the Lviv territorial community, arrived at the site of the seized territory and restored order. Instead, City Hall officials, headed by Andriy Sadovyi, decided to shift personal responsibility for the preservation of Lviv’s reserve lands to the judicial system. At the same time, they kept their high salaries and fantastic bonuses for failure to fulfill their duties, and did not give them to the judges.

The deputies of the Lviv City Council were no more conscientious. They also do not care about the return of the seized lands, but rather, during the war and the daily loss of Ukrainian territories, they brazenly lined their pockets with the taxes of Lviv residents.

Those who want to learn more about this systemic and malicious negligence of Lviv officials and deputies can read at least article #1, article #2, and article #3.

It is worth noting that the unscrupulous official Mykola Behei deceived activist Valentyna Polishchuk that it was impossible to execute the decision of the Lviv Court of Appeal to return the seized territory because the land expropriators had appealed to the Supreme Court to defend their illegal rights. It is not known whether official Begei came up with this nonsense himself or was persuaded by lawyers, but the ruling of the appellate court comes into force on the day it is announced. The Supreme Court may suspend the effect of an appellate ruling while the cassation appeal is pending, but not always. The ruling of the Lviv Court of Appeal on the return of the seized reserve lands was announced on December 9, 2024.

Finally, the day of the ruling came at the Supreme Court. On February 28, 2025, Judge Andrii Zaitsev announced: “The cassation appeal of lawyer Roman Bardyn, as a representative of PERSON_1, against the decision of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Lviv of November 14, 2023 and the decision of the Lviv Court of Appeal of December 09, 2024 shall be returned to the applicant. The decision is not subject to appeal.”

Was it really necessary to spend the material resources of as many as three courts – district, appellate and cassation – to return the stolen goods? Where have the power tools of Lviv officials and deputies, who are very active when it comes to their interests, disappeared?

Helena Payonkevych’s department said that the Shevchenkivskyi District Administration is the enforcer of court decisions in this matter, according to the territorial location of the seized land plot. The legal department of the Shevchenkivskyi District Administration learned about the Supreme Court’s ruling and the court case number (466/10296/23) from Leopolis.news. They promised to think about the process of enforcing the court decision as soon as the head of the legal department, Andriana Andrushkiv, comes out of the hospital. We will follow the course of this procedure, which will undoubtedly be dramatic.

In general, officials at Lviv City Hall have an unlawful tendency to neglect their duty to comply with court decisions. Not only in the case of returning seized reserve lands, but also in the case of illegal dismissal of employees.

So a logical question arises: which of Mykola Meret’s departments, the prosecutor’s office, or Oleksandr Shlyakhovsky’s police, will take on the task of instilling a culture of court decision enforcement in the mayor of Lviv and his subordinates? We can suggest that the most effective way would be to use a progressive criminal method, as the police did in Chernihiv Oblast.

This is not only about some of the officials of the Shevchenkivskyi District Administration, who, by their passivity, are in every way assisting the thieves of communal land, but also about Andrii Sadovyi, who has sheltered twice-offender Oleksandra Sladkova, against whom two criminal proceedings are being heard in the Halytskyi District Court of Lviv – on the destruction of Lviv lakes and forgery of documents. And on the way to the Halytskyi District Court, Sladkova is likely to face another criminal proceeding for embezzlement of 16.5 million budget hryvnias from the Department of Ecology (as established by a thorough audit by the State Audit Service). Therefore, Andriy Sadovyi not only sheltered Sladkova, but transferred her under the careful patronage of his godmother Inna Svystun, who also has a string of offenses – up to this year’s hearing of her case in the Supreme Court panel. Under such favorable circumstances, the defendant Oleksandra Sladkova sometimes does not come to court because her understanding boss Inna Svystun sends her on urgent business trips. Of course, within the administrative boundaries of the Lviv territorial community.

One can only imagine how this double female force in the Department of Economic Development will exercise organizational and functional powers in the socio-economic sphere of the Lviv territorial community in order to effectively use financial resources.

Yaroslav Levkiv, Leopolis.news