No meaningful progress in unblocking of judicial reform
Following the refusal of the Council of Judges to nominate their candidates to the Ethics Council for the High Council of Justice, President Volodmyr Zelensky promised to unblock the reform and announced an extraordinary meeting on Sept. 16 of representatives of the Office of President and judicial bodies, members of parliament, and G7 ambassadors.
Besides the strong statements of international partners in support of the advancement of judicial reform, the meeting itself did not bring any meaningful results. Representatives of the judiciary keep refusing to immediately nominate their experts to the Ethics Council. Moreover, on September 17 the Supreme Court planned to send the appeal to the Constitutional Court regarding the cancellation of the judicial reform. Due to public pressure, the appeal was not adopted and was postponed until October.
Meantime, the HCJ appointed the Selection Commission for the High Qualification Commission of Judges.
Corruption imperils the construction of Okhmatdyt hospital
On Sept. 20, the Board of Trustees of Okhmatdyt (Ukraine’s leading specialized children’s hospital) appealed to Zelensky to put under control the process of construction of the new department of the hospital. The hospital was allocated almost Hr 1 billion ($37 million) for the construction and procurement of equipment. But numerous procurement violations and attempts to spend funds in a non-transparent way led to significant delays and might jeopardize the entire implementation of the project.
How SBU obstructed one of the key NABU’s operations in 2017
In 2017, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine performed an undercover operation investigating the illegal “sale” of Ukrainian citizenship by officials of the State Migration Service. The comprehensive operation was disrupted by Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officers and the Prosecutor General’s Office. According to the Court Reporter project, the details of intervention were recently revealed during court hearings of the case. According to the case materials, one of the officers of the SBU unit, that performed wiretapping, informed the head of the SBU’s anti-corruption department Pavlo Demchyna about the operation. The latter informed the main suspect in the case (deputy head of the Migration Service) and instructed her how to disrupt the operation. Then, the SBU attempted to detain the NABU’s undercover agents and smear the bureau in the media campaign.
Tetiana Shevchuk is a lawyer with the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv.
