Judge Oleksandr Garskiyy: ‘A Judge Must Know People,’ or About Justice and Offender Rehabilitation Through Books
Is judicial punishment a method of education? We talked about this with Oleksandr Garskyi, a judge of the Khadzhybeyskyi District Court of Odesa, who assigns reading a book as part of the punishment for criminals. Watch the full version of the interview and read the shortened version to learn more about justice, literature, the justice system, and human qualities.
We talk a lot about how society has changed, how people have changed under the influence of the full-scale invasion. For example, has the role of a judge and your work changed under the influence of the war?
Changes in the judicial profession have been taking place for a long time, maybe the last 10 years. There have been both negative and positive changes. If we talk about the period during the war alone, the cases we consider have changed, and, of course, the role of the judge, because we understand the responsibility that is now entrusted to us before society and the state when considering those crimes that have become relevant. Especially with regard to the state, for the sake of cooperation.
Your initiative that criminals should read books aspart of their punishment… what is its essence for you and how did this idea come about?
The idea came from the judicial experience of the United Kingdom. I accidentally came across the news when an English judge ordered a young man to read, among other punishments. Yes, these were English writers. And it seemed to me that this was interesting, that it could be applied in Ukraine. By my nature, I have always tried to approach every case and every person mercifully, so this is one of the means of such judicial mercy to people who accidentally fell into the orbit of criminal justice.
Do you remember the first such sentence?
It concerned two guys, previously unconvicted, who, in my opinion, accidentally got into difficult life circumstances and decided to improve their lives by stealing, committing an offense. On the contrary, they made it worse. When I sentenced them to this punishment, first of all, I found out what they were, and that’s why I came up with this idea: to assign them to read books. I think it was unexpected for them, at least. And for me, when I wrote it, I didn’t think about the fact that it would cause such a stir. It just so happened that I consulted with my senior colleagues who have more experience and decided that this would be the right way for certain people. I don’t know how it impressed them. Later on, as I found out, they were no longer wrong in criminal terms.
We call it part of the punishment. But you and I understand that this is, in principle, part of education.
I’ve had this idea before and thought about it. I don’t think that when a judge imposes any punishment, he knows that it will changehim(the criminal – ed.). That is, we assume it. But in reality, you can’t really know for sure. And when I try to believe a person that he will change, I probably use this type of punishment. How it affects him, how it educates him is also a complex factor. It seems to me that again this is only my assumption, when I think that it will change his perception of the world and the relationships that have developed in his life. In this way, I am trying to show him, perhaps, a way to show him that he can change something personally in himself. Again, I say that this is my idea and my vision.
I want us to talk a little bit more generally about judging.One of the features with which it is associated is justice. Can you explain what justice means to you? Does it exist in the world?
I think that sometimes judges and lawyers in general become a bit cynical. There is a lot of philosophical literature on this subject that says that perhaps there is no such thing as justice, but in general, we need to understand that the court is a human institution where justice has much more requirements. It is justice that people come to court for. We understand that there is no such unified opinion on this concept. It seems to me that this is some kind of connection between the private interests of individuals. In other words, the judge has to find that Solomonic solution, that golden mean that would satisfy the needs of both parties, but we understand that this is often not the case. That is why justice must be publicly expressed and somehow combined with one’s own conscience. In other words, if I have no remorse in my own conscience when considering a particular case, I believe that I have resolved it fairly. This is the criterion that I have chosen for myself, and I follow it, so to speak.
It may sound trite, but society has a certain image of a judge from movies, literature, and stories that are massively published and people are impressed by them. Always, if it is a court case, it is often shown that it is not enough for a judge to know only the laws, but to develop his or her own personal qualities. Does this work in practice?
First of all, lawyers should be taught to study people. The more we know about people, the more we will know what good and evil are, and what each person uses in a particular case. So, of course, it works, and it seems to me that judges’ self-improvement should be on this path. We must not forget that a judge works almost constantly with human sins, with human evil. And in order not to become evil yourself, you have to do something good, read well, cultivate goodness in yourself, and change your thinking so as not to become evil yourself.
Is there a case in your practice that has changed or influenced you?
In fact, every judge has many such cases. I’ve been working for 20 years, but of the last few, and it’s timely, given the war, I was very impressed by a case we heard not long ago. It was my first verdict where I passed the most severe punishment that is only available in the criminal law – life imprisonment for a person who betrayed the interests of the state. And what struck me was that he admitted his guilt, and he said it with such bravery, such zeal, such persistence, that he was betraying the interests of the state, that is, he was looking for places where our military equipment was present, where he could commit sabotage, looking for cities where he could do some irreparable harm to the state. And all of this was part of his argumentation. That is, he is not a stupid person, he is a well-read person, a former Ukrainian police officer. He had extensive experience in operational work. That is, he is a real intellectual enemy of the state. And when the prosecutor asked for a 15-year sentence, I asked myself: what will happen in 15 years when he is released? He won’t change, he is a person who is pure evil, that is, he only wants to harm the interests of the state. I made a decision for myself and, apparently, convinced my other colleagues, although they agreed with me that there was really no other punishment for this man. I was struck by this very dislike for the country, when a person was born and raised here, but does not love our state so much…
