Forge ahead, pay no heed to your enemies. That’s the best way to describe how Davit Sakvarelidze is moving to overhaul Ukraine’s public prosecution system.
Prosecutors have wielded tremendous influence over who goes to prison and who gets investigated in Ukraine’s highly corrupt and politicized judicial system.
The failure of prosecutors to file charges against high-level suspects involving billions of dollars in stolen state money have prompted a public backlash that has taken root in a petition drive by more than 100 members of parliament to oust Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. He is seen as a Soviet-era holdover who will do nothing to create an independent and effective prosecutorial service that numbers about 18,000 people.
The prosecutor service was seen as one of the main pillars of Ukraine’s “Blackmail State,” extorting funds from businesses and demanding bribes for opening and closing cases.
Appointed deputy general prosecutor in February and given the daunting task of changing the system from within, Sakvarelidze soon came up against a brick wall of resistance from his co-workers in the Prosecutor General’s Office.
In July, Shokin and his former first deputy Volodymyr Huzyr were accused of pressuring Sakvarelidze into halting a bribery case against two top prosecutors who had cash and diamonds stashed in their offices. There were also attempts to open criminal cases against Sakvarelidze. His comprehensive plan for remaking prosecution was stalled.
But Sakvarelidze has managed to regain his footing, albeit with a little help from President Petro Poroshenko.
Instead of firing Shokin for sabotaging reform, as some suggested, Poroshenko ordered him to back off.
“If it hadn’t been for the president’s will, the whole testing process (of new prosecutors) you see here wouldn’t have taken place,” Sakvarelidze, Georgia’s first deputy prosecutor general from 2009 to 2012, told the Kyiv Post in an interview at the Academy of Prosecutors.
The testing process is a key part of Sakvarelidze’s complete overhaul of the prosecution service. At the local level, the number of senior prosecutors is to be cut by two-thirds, while the total number of prosecutors is to fall from 18,000 to 12,000.
“But neither the form nor the structure (of the prosecution service) prevent corruption,” Sakvarelidze said. “It’s how we choose candidates, the guidelines and principles they comply with, a decent salary, and a system of internal control and discipline.”
Sakvarelidze said all these elements were in place with the possible exception of decent wages. Monthly salaries for rank-and-file prosecutors are slated to reach around Hr 20,000 to Hr 25,000 if Sakvarelidze gets his way.
A total of 6,000 candidates are being tested for the 700 leading positions at the country’s local prosecutor offices that would be left after structural reform. “Then we go for the oblast offices and the Prosecutor General’s Office,” Sakvarelidze said.
Once hired, the new local prosecutors will be free of pressure from above because they won’t owe their positions to their bosses, as they were competitively chosen based on merit, according to Sakvarelidze.
“We don’t have a magic wand, and there’s been no revolution in the prosecution (service) before, so of course our efforts are not without difficulties,” Sakvarelidze said. He said that corruption under ex-President Viktor Yanukovych had been systemic, with the top prosecutor Viktor Pshonka demanding that a constant flow of illicit funds be passed up the ladder.
Support for reform has mostly come from prosecutors in the lower levels, he said, hoping they could help overcome the resistance to change.
Apart from reformers, Sakvarelidze’s team also includes a six-person internal investigation unit. “If you have information about wrongdoing by prosecutors, come to me,” he said.
But Sakvarelidze said his changes still faced sabotage from within. Altogether, 2,250 prosecutors will have to pass tests to compete for 700 jobs, and a lot of them are unhappy about that, he said.
“These are influential people, and behind them are high-ranking officials at the Prosecutor General’s Office, political groups and lawmakers,” Sakvarelidze said. “They are unhappy, and they’ll try to discredit this reform.”
One senior prosecutor accused of treachery is ex-Deputy Prosecutor General Volodymyr Huzyr. He was fired in July after evidence emerged that he was trying to protect top prosecutors accused of corruption – Volodymyr Shapakin and Oleksandr Korniyets.
The two were arrested in early July by Sakvarelidze’s investigators as part of a bribery case. Sakvarelidze then publicly accused the leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office of retaliation after two cases were started against his investigators.
He told the Kyiv Post that Huzyr “did not like” the Shapakin-Korniyets case, and did not support his reform of the Prosecutor General’s Office.
“He didn’t want to change a lot of things that have to be changed in this system,” Sakvarelidze said, adding that both suspects were Huzyr’s close acquaintances.
Mustafa Nayyem, a lawmaker from Poroshenko’s faction in parliament, said in July that they were also protégés of Prosecutor General Victor Shokin, and that the prosecutor general was also trying to protect them.
Huzyr has also been accused of preventing an investigation of alleged violations at oil firm BRSM-Nafta.
“In Ukraine nothing stays secret, and some day these questions will be raised, and specific answers will be given,” Sakvarelidze said, commenting on alleged links between Huzyr and BRSM-Nafta.
Sakvarelidze said that he deplored the fact that officials accused of corruption are not prosecuted after being fired. “Someone can earn a million, and after he’s fired, he has a ball, since he can enjoy his wealth,” he said.
Huzyr’s replacement, incumbent First Deputy Prosecutor General Yury Sevruk, has also come under fire for allegedly trying to scupper Sakvarelidze’s reform. In August he lashed out at the testing system used by Sakvarelidze to hire prosecutors, and the process was put on hold.
Sakvarelidze told the Kyiv Post, however, that his disagreements with Sevruk were over.
Sakvarelidze agreed with the widespread public feeling that corruption cases against allies of Yanukovych and those into the murders of EuroMaidan Revolution protesters were being investigated very slowly.
“There were days and weeks when (prosecutors) should have reacted faster not to let the (suspects’) trails go cold, and to prevent them from leaving the country,” he said.
He said that the delays in the investigations could be attributed to corruption, a faulty management system, and other problems.
Ukraine’s law enforcement system has also dragged its feet on freezing and seizing assets linked to Yanukovych allies. One of the reasons for this is imperfect legislation, Sakvarelidze said.
He said that in January parliament failed to support the notion of “related party” in legislation proposed by prosecutors that would make it easier to freeze and confiscate assets registered to suspects’ relatives, friends or employees. “Maybe some of those who didn’t vote for it saw that it could be used against themselves,” Sakvarelidze said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Johannes Wamberg Andersen can be reached at [email protected]. Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected]
