The Prosecutor General’s Office is set to elect on April 26 internal regulating bodies that will be able to block attempts to attract new personnel to the discredited prosecution service or to fire corrupt officials.
The moves would ensure that any reformist prosecutor general is unable
to fire or appoint prosecutors, preventing any reform of the service. Only the self-regulating bodies will be able to make decisions on appointments and dismissals.
President Petro Poroshenko and parliament are also not interfering,
critics say, and seem set to perpetuate the same dismal team led by
ex-Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, fired under public pressure this month.
Shokin and acting Prosecutor General Yury Sevruk have expelled almost all reformers from the prosecutor’s office. Last year they made sure that a competitive hiring process for chief local prosecutors preserved old cadres.
“Shokin will be back at the Prosecutor General’s Office on April 26,” Maryna Tsapok, an expert at the Reanimation Package of Reforms, wrote on Facebook on April 21, using a metaphor for Shokin’s team. “The president and lawmakers have already paved his way with rose petals and commissioned an orchestra with a red carpet.”
Insiders triumph
Under a 2014 law on prosecutorial reform, a nationwide conference of
prosecutors is scheduled to elect the Council of Prosecutors and the
Qualification and Discipline Commission on April 26.
“They’re in a hurry to assemble the Qualification and Discipline
Commission to preserve their loyal cadres,” ex-Deputy Prosecutor General
Sakvarelidze told the Kyiv Post. “This will be ‘Shokin forever.’ Everyone will
still be influenced by Shokin’s team.”
Sakvarelidze said that prosecutors would just tell the prosecutor
general that they “are now independent of him,” something that he said
Poroshenko is doing nothing to stop. He said the prosecutor general would play the nominal “role of the English queen.”
Yuriy Lutsenko, head of the president’s faction in parliament and a
candidate for the prosecutor general’s job, said on April 20 that “devils” would never
elect “angels,” referring to the April 26 conference of prosecutors.
“The Prosecutor General’s Office stays unreformed,” Lutsenko said. “On
Tuesday it will cement (old cadres’) omnipotence and the next prosecutor general
will be unable to interfere in their actions.”
“I don’t want to take part in this process,” he said. “Is anyone willing
to be a figurehead, given the omnipotence of the current prosecutorial
graveyard that will not allow any human resource changes? I’m not.”
The Poroshenko Bloc has sponsored a bill that seeks to postpone the
creation of self-regulating bodies for a year. The Verkhovna Rada’s law
enforcement committee on April 20 rejected the bill and sent it back for
amendments.
Since the Verkhovna Rada will not hold any meetings until early May, now
it is too late to postpone the conference.
Meanwhile, ex-Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaly Kasko said on April 21
that Shokin de facto kept running the Prosecutor General’s Office through his
loyalists despite his official resignation on April 3.
Ukrainska Pravda on April 21 published Shokin’s documents found in the
house of ex-top prosecutor Oleksandr Korniyets, re-igniting speculation that
Shokin is implicated in Korniyets’ suspected corruption schemes that he and
Shokin deny.
Legal chaos
Another aspect of the legal chaos around the Prosecutor General’s Office
is the disputed legality of all ongoing investigations.
A recent law was supposed to transfer investigative functions from the
Prosecutor General’s Office to the yet-to-be-created State Investigation Bureau
on March 1.
However, the
bureau had not been created and is now likely to be launched only next year. As
a result, the legality of all investigations starting from March 1 is
questionable and has already been disputed in the nation’s courts.
The prosecutorial
bill pushed by the Poroshenko Bloc seeks to resolve this issue by allowing the
Prosecutor General’s Office to continue investigations until the bureau is
launched.
Criminal cases suspended
The bill would also allow suspects put on Ukraine’s national wanted list
to be tried in absentia.
Under current law, only those on international wanted lists can be tried
in absentia, which has thwarted investigations against allies of fugitive ex-President
Viktor Yanukovych.
As a result of Interpol’s refusal to issue wanted notices for several of
the allies, earlier this week the Prosecutor General’s Office had to suspend
investigations against Yanukovych allies including ex-Prosecutor General Viktor
Pshonka, ex-First Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin, Oleksandr Yakymenko,
ex-head of the Security Service of Ukraine, and Ihor Sorkin, former head of the
National Bank of Ukraine.
Serhiy Horbatyuk, head of the department for trials in absentia at the
Prosecutor General’s Office, said on April 21 that the cases had been suspended
because otherwise the one-year deadline for their completion would be missed.
The Prosecutor General’s Office has been criticized for protecting
Yanukovych and his associates. So far, not a single graft case against them has
gone to court.
‘Lutsenko bill’
The Poroshenko Bloc’s bill has caused a controversy because it is
narrowly tailored to fit Lutsenko’s background, qualifying him to become
prosecutor general. Poroshenko’s
attempts to promote loyalist Lutsenko, who has no law degree, run counter to
his earlier promises to appoint an independent and professional prosecutor
general.
Under current law, the prosecutor general must have higher legal
education and prosecutorial experience.
The Poroshenko
Bloc’s bill would abolish the prosecutorial experience requirement. Under the
bill, those with any higher education and work experience for at least five
years in the “legal field” or in a law enforcement or legislative body would be
eligible. Lutsenko has worked as a lawmaker and interior minister.
Crackdown on reformers
As the old prosecutorial cadres are set to cement their grip on the
Prosecutor General’s Office, the crackdown on reformers continues.
Horbatyuk, who is respected by lawyers for EuroMaidan protesters and has
been nominated by them for the job of prosecutor general, said on April 20 that
Deputy Prosecutor General Yury Stolyarchuk had opened investigations against
his department. Horbatiuk said his superiors had threatened to fire him.
Sergii Leshchenko, a critical lawmaker from the Poroshenko Bloc, said
then that prosecutors were planning to file a notice of suspicion against
Horbatiuk.
Previously the Prosecutor General’s Office opened investigations against
other reformers, including Sakvarelidze and Kasko.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be
reached at [email protected]
