One of the biggest achievements of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s first two years in office has been to lift lawmakers’ immunity from criminal prosecution.
The reform looked like a breakthrough on paper. But in real life, the immunity — and impunity —goes on. We received a vivid reminder just recently.
Oleksandr Trukhin, a lawmaker with the 243-member parliament faction of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, was apparently involved in a car crash on Aug. 23. A car that he was reportedly driving rammed into another vehicle on a highway near Kyiv. Six people were injured, including two children.
Soon, the impunity machine started working its gears. News of the crash began to disappear from media websites. Journalists shared emails they received from shady PR people, offering to pay to have the news about Trukhin taken down, or at least his name removed.
The blunt whitewashing campaign caused more outrage than the car crash itself.
Meanwhile, the police, controlled by a former Servant of the People lawmaker, stayed silent about Trukhin’s role in the crash. The party stayed silent. The president, who is responsible for the fact that Trukhin got elected, stayed silent.
It’s clear that the lawmaker is about to get away with the crash, and the president is about to let him.
It’s not the first time Zelensky and his administration demonstrated their readiness to overlook the misdeeds of members of their team.
The president has infamously defended Oleh Tatarov, the deputy head of his administration, who is suspected of helping a developer embezzle millions of hryvnias from the state in his previous job.
Zelensky’s lawmaker Mykola Tyshchenko has been caught violating the lockdown to throw a birthday party for his wife and got away with it. Another lawmaker, Pavlo Khalimon, was implicated in bribery but Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova refused to authorize an investigation.
Zelensky could use the scandals within his party to prove his devotion to justice and rule of law. Instead, he is preferring to overlook his lawmakers’ misdeeds or downplay them.
This is how it’s always been in Ukraine. When someone breaks the law, they can get away with it if they’re wealthy, connected or a member of parliament.
Serhiy Pashynsky shot a man during an argument in 2016, and got away with it. Viktor Lozinsky, dubbed “the murderer lawmaker,” almost got away with killing a villager in 2009. Only after enormous public pressure was he convicted but he ended up spending just five years in prison.
Incidentally, Trukhin’s own ex-wife has gotten away with killing a 62-year-old woman with her car in 2009. It probably helped that she is the daughter of one of the richest Ukrainians, Dnipro-based businessman Oleksiy Martynov.
This is why Trukhin’s case is so familiar and why it is seen as a test of Zelensky’s devotion to justice.
Zelensky failed several tests already. Perhaps, this time he will surprise us.
