In the Mykolaiv region, a judge drank alcohol at work and fell asleep in her office — she has now been dismissed

The High Council of Justice 24 September 2026 adopted a decision to dismiss Oksana Vasylivna Zvyagina from the position of judge of the Bashtanka District Court of Mykolaiv Oblast. The disciplinary proceedings against her began after a complaint by the acting head of the court Serhiy Viktorovych Yanchuk, filed in October 2025.

The events related to 2 October 2025. According to the materials of the disciplinary case, the judge consumed alcohol during working hours and at the workplace. Court employees reported that she began drinking already in the morning, and instructed one of her subordinates to buy more. After lunch the judge herself went to the store. Later she fell asleep in her official office, where she was found in the evening by a court security officer. The HCJ materials also state that an open safe contained a package with an empty 0.75-liter bottle of the sparkling wine “ASTI”, and in the adjacent office No. 4, assigned to the judge’s office, — a 0.35-liter bottle of the cognac “AZNAURI «3”.

Footage from the court’s surveillance cameras captured frames showing a security officer carrying the woman in an unconscious state, followed by a court employee and her husband. At the same time, there was no direct video recording of the moment of intoxication, and no medical documents confirming intoxication were found in the case files.

3 October 2025 the judge did not come to work and did not notify the court management of her absence. Because of this, the hearings scheduled for that day were removed from the docket.

19 November 2025 the Second Disciplinary Chamber of the HCJ opened a disciplinary case against the judge. After reviewing the materials on 4 February 2026, the chamber concluded that the body of evidence confirms the consumption of alcohol at the workplace, the judge’s state of intoxication, and the subsequent failure to return to work without valid reasons. This was recognized as a significant disciplinary offense, and the sanction was a submission for dismissal. 7 July 2026 the High Council of Justice left the decision of the Second Disciplinary Chamber unchanged.

У підсумку 24 September 2026 the HCJ dismissed Oksana Vasylivna Zvyagina from the position of judge of the Bashtanka District Court of Mykolaiv Oblast on the basis of paragraph 3 of part 6 of Article 126 of the Constitution of Ukraine.

Earlier we wrote:

• In Mykolaiv Oblast, a judge was dismissed for intoxication at the workplace
• A court in Mykolaiv Oblast did not find a crime in the “busification” of a man with a deferment
• In Mykolaiv Oblast, a man suspected of raping a child was remanded in custody without bail
• A serviceman was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the shooting of a resident of Mykolaiv Oblast