Activists argue that the recent concession by President Petro Poroshenko and Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin to the European Union and civil society on the selection of the anti-corruption prosecutor is a deception.
Bowing to long-running pressure by anti-corruption watchdogs and EU officials, Shokin on Nov. 6 replaced two of his four controversial representatives on the commission for choosing the anti-corruption prosecutor.
But activists say Poroshenko and Shokin failed to replace the two other controversial members and were also trying to get rid of a foreign member of the commission.
The Prosecutor General’s Office rejects the accusations, while Poroshenko’s spokesman Sviatoslav Tsegolko did not reply to repeated requests for comment.
The reports come as Poroshenko and Shokin are accused of sabotaging the creation of an efficient and independent law enforcement system capable of delivering justice.
The commission for selecting the chief anti-corruption prosecutor comprises 11 people, including four chosen by the prosecutor general and seven by the Verkhovna Rada.
In August, Shokin appointed to the commission First Deputy Prosecutor General Yury Sevruk; Yury Hryshchenko, head of the main investigative department of the Prosecutor General’s Office; Roman Balyta, a deputy head of the office’s department for criminal investigations oversight, and Mykola Sadovy, a deputy head of its human resources department.
Shokin’s choice triggered a backlash from civil society, since his four representatives were seen as part of the old prosecutorial system inimical to reform.
One of them, Hryshchenko, has been lambasted because he was the boss of Volodymyr Shapakin, a top prosecutor arrested in a sting operation organized by Deputy Prosecutor General Davit Sakvarelidze in July and charged with bribery.
The prosecutor general’s choice has been criticized by representatives of the E.U., which urged him to replace the four prosecutors with people whom civil society trusts, and by Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry.
The E.U.’s position is crucial because it is expected to provide funding for the creation of the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office and because anti-corruption efforts are a requirement for a visa free regime. Last week the E.U. suspended funding for one of the testing procedures amid the scandal but subsequently resumed it.
As a result, Shokin has even launched a war on the Foreign Ministry by initiating a check of the legality of its demands to replace the prosecutors, according to the Yevropeiska Pravda newspaper.
Last week Shokin finally conceded by replacing Hryshchenko and Sadovy with Taras Tkalich, head of the nation’s alliance of veterans of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and Iosif Zisels, a vice president of the Congress of Ethnic Communities. Poroshenko said on Nov. 7 that the issue had been settled, and Ukrainian authorities had complied with the E.U.’s demands.
But critics say this is not true.
One problem is that Shokin did not replace Sevruk, the most controversial of the four prosecutors, Vitaly Shabunin, a member of the commission and head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, told the Kyiv Post.
Sevruk has “tried to kill the reform of local prosecutors’ offices” by disputing the tests for new prosecutors developed and funded by the U.S. and launched a probe against Sakvarelidze, who is responsible for the reform, Shabunin said. The reform envisages cutting staff and hiring new prosecutors in a transparent competitive process.
Another representative of Shokin who remained on the commission, Balyta, is also controversial because the results of his previous work as acting prosecutor of Zakarpattia Oblast are disappointing, Shabunin said. As an example, he cited a shootout linked to smuggling schemes between activists of the Right Sector nationalist group and lawmaker Mikhailo Lanyo in Zakarpattia Oblast in July.
Vladyslav Kutsenko, an aide to Shokin, defended the prosecutor general’s decision by telling the Kyiv Post that at least two prosecutors should stay on the commission to determine candidates’ professional skills.
Shabunin also argued that the new members appointed by Shokin, Tkalich and Zisels, were not among well-known people trusted by civil society.
He said he did not know Tkalich but had some information on Zisels.
“During the selection of the Anti-Corruption Bureau’s head Zisels did his best to expel people who are not favored by the president,” Shabunin said.
Specifically, Zisels persuaded the commission for choosing the bureau’s head to bar Verkhovna Rada member Viktor Chumak, who had fallen out with the president, from the competition “by manipulating legal norms,” Shabunin said.
Kutsenko retorted that Tkalich had a good reputation because he had participated in the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution and in the war with Russia, while Zisels had “positive experience” in choosing the Anti-Corruption Bureau’s chief.
Shabunin also lambasted the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front party for submitting to the Verkhovna Rada a proposal to replace Mary Butler, a member of the commission and a deputy chief of the U.S. Justice Department’s asset forfeiture and money laundering unit, with Giovanni Kessler, director general of the European Anti-Fraud Office.
Neither Butler nor Kessler agreed to such a replacement.
Kessler told Yevropeiska Pravda on Nov. 9 that nobody had told him about the move. He said that he would not agree to replace Butler but would be prepared to replace one of the members delegated by the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Shabunin argued that the attempt to oust Butler was a deception by Poroshenko and Shokin aimed at getting rid of either one of the foreigners or both of them.
“The proposal to replace Butler with Kessler is an intentional manipulation and an attempt to get rid of the only foreign commission member who cannot be influenced by any political force,” he wrote in his blog on Nov. 8.
Shabunin argued that Poroshenko “is intentionally provoking a conflict with the E.U. and U.S. because it’s more important for him to choose a prosecutor he can control than E.U. and U.S. support.”
The Ukrainian branch of Transparency International supported Shabunin’s demands in a statement on Nov. 9, urging Shokin to replace Sevruk with Kessler.
Commenting on the accusations, Kutsenko urged Shabunin to step down as a member of the commission to make room for Kessler.
Critics say that authorities’ continued attempts to sabotage the creation of an anti-corruption prosecutor’s office coincide with efforts to derail Sakvarelidze’s prosecutorial reform.
On Nov. 6, Radio Liberty published an investigation that paints a gloomy picture of the reform.
Radio Liberty has observed the selection of local prosecutors for the Pryluky and Mena prosecutor’s offices in Chernihiv Oblast. Eventually the commission recommended six candidates all of whom are incumbent district prosecutors, which guarantees that no change will take place, Radio Liberty reported.
Sakvarelidze defended the reform by telling the Kyiv Post that only 20 percent of incumbent prosecutors who occupy top positions at district prosecutors’ offices had made it into the fourth stage of the competition.
Radio Liberty also claimed that the records of the commission for choosing local prosecutors in Chernihiv Oblast had been falsified, Radio Liberty claimed.
Verkhovna Rada member Serhiy Vlasenko was absent at the commission meeting, while another lawmaker, Roman Romanyuk was present for only part of the time, according to the radio station. However, they were recorded as present at the meeting, Radio Liberty said.
Inna Ishchenko, an aide to Sakvarelidze, denied that a falsification had taken place, saying by phone that there was a technical error, and subsequently the report had been corrected.
Another critique of the Prosecutor General’s Office was voiced last week by lawmaker Andriy Denysenko, an ally of businessman and politician Gennady Korban, who was arrested in an embezzlement and organized crime case on Oct. 31.
Speaking on the Shuster Live television show, Denysenko lambasted Shokin, who was in charge of investigations at the Prosecutor General’s Office in 2001, for what he believes to be a cover-up of the case into the death of then-Interior Minister Yury Kravchenko at the time.
According to the official version, Kravchenko committed suicide by shooting in his head twice. Critics say his death was a murder.
Denysenko also described Shokin as a staunch loyalist and friend of Poroshenko – something that critics say prevents the independence of the prosecutor’s office.
In 2005 tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, an ally of Denysenko and Korban, testified in a London court that Shokin had worked at Poroshenko’s security detail for a year and a half.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].
