1. The subject of the dispute is the appeal against the order to dismiss the plaintiff from the position of the First Deputy Director of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) due to a conflict of interest.
2. The court of cassation established that the courts of previous instances did not fully investigate the actual circumstances of the case and did not provide a proper legal assessment of the arguments of the parties, in particular, regarding the presence or absence of a conflict of interest in the plaintiff, the possibility of resolving the conflict of interest by transferring to another position, and also did not investigate the scope of authority of the First Deputy Director of the SBI regarding the possibility of influencing the course of pre-trial investigation in criminal proceedings. The court noted that the courts did not investigate whether other positions were actually offered to the plaintiff, and did not assess the plaintiff’s arguments about the existence of vacant positions at the time of dismissal that he agreed to take. The court also emphasized that the courts did not take into account that dismissal is an extreme measure of conflict of interest resolution, and its application is possible only if it is impossible to resolve the conflict of interest in another way. The court indicated that the permanent conflict of interest in the plaintiff’s activities, mentioned in the NACP letter, which was not investigated by the courts of previous instances, is not the implementation of the NACP’s discretionary powers, but is the basis for issuing a dismissal order, which must be checked by the court for compliance with the requirements specified in the second part of Article 2 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure of Ukraine, and proved by the subject of power.
3. The Supreme Court overturned the decisions of the previous courts and sent the case for a new trial to the court of first instance.
