Yegor Sobolev, the journalist-turned-EuroMaidan Revolution activist who now heads the newly formed Lustration Committee, said on March 12 that he wants deposed President Victor Yanukovych and six other members of his regime to be banned from government for life.
Along with Yanukovich, Sobolev suggested that former head
of the Presidential Administration Andriy Klyuyev, former Prosecutor General
Viktor Pshonka, former Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko, former head of
the Security Service of Ukraine Oleksandr Yakymenko, first deputy head of the
Presidential Administration Andriy Portnov and former Justice Minister Olena Lukash
receive lifetime bans from holding public office.
Although lustration will affect many
convicted of serious crimes, Sobolev made sure to note that “lustration is not
a criminal punishment.”
Criminal proceedings against officials will
be carried out separately.
Lifetime bans will not only affect only top
officials from the Yanukovych administration.
According to recommendations from the
Council of Europe, Sobolev said that other government officials, including
judges, would be banned from participating in government for five years,
because “people are capable of reform.”
Corruption has pervaded every level of
Ukrainian government since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Last year, Ukraine
ranked 144th out of 177 countries ranked in Transparency
International’s Corruption Perception Index.
Sobolev admitted that reforming the state
would be a monumental task, saying that country must work together to “defeat
the enemy step by step.” He said investigating the 8,500 judges and several
hundred thousand police officers in Ukraine will take time. During the process
of lustration, Ukraine will need to start training new judges, policemen, and
other civil servants to replace corrupt officials.
Although Sobolev conceded that reform could
not happen overnight, he said that legislation to establish the framework for
lustration needed to be passed immediately.
On March 13, Sobolev will submit a law to
the Verkhovna Rada that will formally establish the Lustration Committee as part
of the state.
Currently, the committee is a public
initiative staffed by volunteers. When asked about financing lustration,
Sobolev responded that taxpayer money would fund the committee, joking that he
hoped his wife would not have to continue covering his work expenses.
Until it is subsumed into the government,
Sobolev said “the whole country should become the Lustration Committee,” and
that the committee would be forced to rely on private contributions and
volunteers to sustain its activities.
He said that his committee is working under
guidance from the Council of Europe, which recommended that the Lustration
Committee remain independent from the Cabinet of Ministers. Sobolev was adamant
that his committee would not be involved in cleansing corrupt officials,
judges, and policemen, but rather would create the legal framework for
lustration: “I am categorically against the Lustration Committee carrying out
lustration.”
His committee is preparing legislation to
ban judges who were involved in the prosecution of EuroMaidan activists for
five years, and in the process of creating a framework to remove corrupt
officials from law enforcement bodies and other parts of the state apparatus:
“the task is to differentiate between those who are ready to serve the state
and those who [can only] serve the machine of corruption.”
Sobolev said his committee would consider
how lustration was carried out in Germany, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Estonia,
and Poland as they chart the course of lustration in Ukraine. In particular, he
said that the “German experience could be very helpful.” However, Ukraine “must
first listen to ideas inside the country and then invite [foreign] experts” and
consultants to advise the process of banning corrupt officials.
Sobolev said that although lustration
carries a negative connotation, his committee must work to “have open
discussions in the south and east to explain that lustration is not such an
awful word.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Isaac
Webb can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @isaacdwebb
