On Sept. 26, in five months after the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, Ukraine's only ray of hope for reform of the corrupt criminal justice system, launched its operation, parliament finally chose seven candidates to top the commission to appoint anti-corruption prosecutor.
Those
chosen include:
* Mary
Butler, deputy chief of the asset forfeiture and money laundering section of
U.S. Department of Justice;
* ex-judge
of Ukraine’s Constitutional Court Viktor Shyshkin; and
*
Vitaliy Shabunin from Ukraine’s watchdog organization Anticorruption Action
Centre.
The
trio not only outvoted other candidates, but are also believed to be the most
competent experts in the anti-corruption drive.
Civic
activist and member of the board of anti-corruption watchdog Transparency
International Ukraine Yaroslav Yurchyshyn said: “These candidates will for
sure defend the integrity of the procedure.”
Two
others, Volodymyr Horbach, chief of Institute of Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, and
Kateryna Levchenko, president of the International Women’s Rights Centre La
Strada – Ukraine, will most probably join them in this, Yurchyshyn said.
Meantime,
Yurchyshyn has little confidence in Volodymyr Filenko, ex-member of parliament
and Interior Minster advisor, and Yevgeny Nishchuk, ex-minister of culture and
the “voice of Maidan.”
“Filenko
is a politician,” while “Nizhnyk does not have much experience in
anti-corruption fight,” Yurchyshyn said.
He
also expressed regret that Giovanni Kessler, director of the European
Anti-Fraud Office and “one of the strongest candidates,” “was not appointed due
to political reasons.”
Kessler
used to be a member of a commission selecting candidates for head of
Anti-Corruption Bureau, explained Yurchyshyn. “He did not allow presidential
administration to delay the process” and paid a price, Yurchyshyn said.
Three
candidates – Nishchuk, Horbach, and Levchenko – were put forward by the
pro-presidential party, while two others Butler and Filenko were nominated by
the People’s Front party. Samopomich and Batkivshchyna parties advocated for
Shabunin and Shyshkin respectively.
While
Yurchysyn admitted that “it is likely that political arrangements were
present,” he emphasized that candidates chosen were “close to optimal.”
Given
that the first 25 detectives with the Anti-Corruption Bureau took oath of
office on Sept. 15 and are ready to investigate corruption cases against senior
state officials, Ukraine urgently needs an independent anti-corruption
prosecution to start throwing corrupt officials to jails.
According
to Ukrainian criminal procedural code, only prosecutor is entitled to issue
notices of suspicion and indictments, not to mention prosecutor’s power to
oversight the work of bureau’s detectives, approve courts’ requests for
obtaining evidence and issue search or asset seizure warrants.
Ukraine’s
Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin has appointed four candidates earlier, on Aug.
26.
Earlier,
on Sept. 12, National Anti-Corruption Bureau head, Artem Sytnyk told the Kyiv
Post that the very existence of Ukraine depends on the bureau’s work.
“Unless
the Anti-Corruption Bureau starts working, and unless we start investigations
and do something about corruption, Ukraine will cease to exist in a year or a
year and a half because corruption is destroying the country,” he said. “If we
fail to launch the bureau and start investigations, we’ll derail the whole
reform process.”
Before
the vote Yegor Sobolev, head of anti-corruption parliamentary committee, called
upon members of parliament to delegate “men of principle who belong to no one.”
He also emphasized that Shokin has already appointed “four high-ranked corrupt
officials from General Prosecutor’s Office to commission.”
It
means that “he (Shokin) needs only two weak and un-experienced people, and he
will have a majority in a commission,” Sobolyev explained.
Kyiv
Post’s Legal Affairs Reporter Mariana Antonovych can be reached at [email protected]
