KIEV, March 9 – Vasyl Onopenko, the head of the Supreme Court and the only senior official in Ukraine that is not affiliated with President Viktor Yanukovych’s party, will face a no-confidence vote on Friday.

The vote will be held at the 49-member court after 19 judges submitted a written complaint accusing Onopenko of “politics” that had made “senior officials of the state” angry, triggering a controversial legal reform.

At least 25 judges must show up at the meeting of the court that will hold the no confidence motion in order to make any decision official.

“Instead of the solving main problems in the area of courts, the head of the court had appears to be involved in mainly political activity that had led to politicizing of the Supreme Court in the eyes of most senior officials of the state,” the 19 judges wrote in the complaint.

The position of the head of the Supreme Court may become instrumental in the battle for Parliament in October 2012, and perhaps at the next presidential election in March 2015.

It was the Supreme Court that had cancelled in December 2004 the controversial presidential election upholding the allegation that the election had been attempted to be stolen by Yanukovych, then the prime minister.

The court ordered a re-run of the second round of the election at which opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko had defeated Yanukovych to become the president in January 2005 through February 2010.

After the election of Yanukovych to the presidency in February 2010 all bodies of the government and legal authorities in Ukraine had been reshuffled to appoint Yanukovch loyalists.

The only exception is Onopenko.

“Onopenko is the only party in the triad of state authorities that is not affiliated with the [Yanukovych] camp and their supporters,” Olena Miller, a legal commentator, wrote in an analysis for Ukrayinska Pravda newspaper.

The motion to dismiss Onopenko comes less than two weeks after reports had indicated that Yanukovych has been seeking to mount an attack against the head of the Supreme Court.

Some judges of the court have been apparently invited to the presidential administration where they had been asked to move against Onopenko, a source at the court told Kommersant newspaper.

“In exchange for the vote against Onopenko I was offered a position of deputy head of the court,” the source told the newspaper.

Andriy Portnov, a deputy chief of staff at the Yanukovych administration and the official who is in charge of drafting legislation to reform the legal system, denied any pressure on the judges.

Opposition lawmakers said Yanukovych has been seeking to replace Onopenko with a more loyal figure - most likely with Serhiy Kivalov - to the post. (tl/ez)