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Iryna Shyba – reformer of the week
Iryna Shyba, head of projects at the DEJURE Foundation judicial think-tank, has been fighting for a fair and transparent competition for the anti-corruption court.
The High Qualification Commission on July 24 launched the registration of candidates’ intentions for the High Anti-Corruption Court and up to 80 more Supreme Court job openings.
Shyba said at a Reanimation Package of Reforms event on July 25 that the announcement was a signal that the commission wanted to hold the competition as fast as possible, which would damage it. “We need quality, not speed,” she said.
She also said that international experts taking part in the selection of anti-corruption court judges would have no access to candidates’ profiles.
Experts who spoke at the Reanimation Package of Reforms event on July 25 said that the commission could choose experts biased in favor of Ukrainian authorities and ill-informed ones.
The experts agreed that the assessment methodology for assigning scores should be made objective to ensure a fair competition for the anti-corruption court.
However, People’s Front lawmaker Leonid Yemets and Maksym Kostetskyy, an expert at Transparency International Ukraine, said that the authorities were reluctant to amend the assessment methodology.
Maksym Hryshchuk – anti-reformer of the week
Maksym Hryshchuk, first deputy of Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky, used to be hailed as a hero of both the war with Russia and the one with corruption, becoming the Kyiv Post’s reformer of the week on Sept. 8, 2016.
On July 25, however, Hryshchuk dealt a major blow to his reputation by backing his boss Kholodnytsky and arguably Ukraine’s kleptocracy in general.
Hryshchuk, who fought against Russian-separatist forces at Donetsk Airport in 2014 to 2015, signed a letter in support of Kholodnytsky along with many other subordinates of the discredited prosecutor.
In the letter, the prosecutors accused anti-corruption activists and media, including the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper, of pressuring Kholodnytsky and other anti-corruption prosecutors and of lying.
Hryshchuk denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
“I signed because I’m against pressure on my prosecutors,” he told the Kyiv Post. “I’ll always support the law and, as a top official of the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office, I must guarantee normal work conditions for my subordinates when they are not afraid of doing their work independently.”
However, he declined to comment on why he had been fighting for independence from civil society’s oversight rather than from top corrupt officials.
The High Qualification Commission of Prosecutors on July 26 decided not to fire Kholodnytsky, who stands accused of obstructing top corruption investigations, and merely reprimanded him.
On tapes published by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine in April, Kholodnytsky was recorded obstructing corruption cases against Odesa Mayor Hennady Trukhanov, Natalia Korchak, the former head of the National Agency for Preventing Corruption, People’s Front lawmaker Georgii Logvynskyi, and other powerful figures.
