Anti-corruption activists have criticized yet another bill seeking to fire Artem Sytnyk, the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine.
The bill was submitted to the Verkhovna Rada on April 30 and sent to the anti-corruption committee on May 5. The Anti-Corruption Action Center published an opinion on the bill on May 6.
The legislation is better than two previous bills seeking to fire Sytnyk, according to the Anti-Corruption Action Center. However, the latest bill also undermines the NABU’s independence and may disrupt Ukraine’s relations with foreign partners, the watchdog said.
The bill was sponsored by several lawmakers from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party. These are Oleksandr Korniyenko, head of the party; David Arakhamia, head of the party’s faction in the Rada; Anastasia Radina, head of the anti-corruption committee, and Serhiy Ionushas, a deputy head of the law enforcement committee.
They did not respond to requests for comment.
Clauses of the bill
The bill envisages firing Sytnyk before the expiration of his term – after a new chief of the bureau is selected.
“The bill stipulates a political dismissal of the bureau’s head before the expiry of his term without any legal grounds for this,” the Anti-Corruption Action Center said. “It undermines the NABU’s independence because in the future any changes to the NABU law can be used to fire the NABU’s head for political reasons without legal grounds.”
Under the bill, a new head of the NABU would be chosen by a commission of six members. Three would be delegated by the president-controlled National Security and Defense Council and three by the Cabinet, according to the new bill.
According to the bill, four members of the commission, including at least two members of the National Security and Defense Council and at least two foreign experts, would be needed to make decisions on candidates.
As a result, members of the National Security and Defense Council will be able to block any candidate who is not loyal to the authorities, including Zelensky, the anti-corruption watchdog said.
The commission will nominate two candidates one of whom can be appointed as the head of the NABU by the Cabinet. This poses a threat because the Cabinet may reach a political bargain with one of the candidates and appoint him in exchange for loyalty, the Anti-Corruption Action Center said.
The bill also envisages that within eight years the Cabinet will submit a bill to exclude foreign experts from the selection of NABU chiefs in the future. This means that, if a new NABU head turns out to be disloyal, they can be easily fired and replaced with someone more pliable without foreigners’ participation, the Anti-Corruption Action Center said.
Previous bills
The latest bill follows several other attempts to fire Sytnyk.
In 2020 the Constitutional Court canceled then-President Petro Poroshenko’s 2015 decree to appoint Sytnyk as head of the bureau and struck down clauses of the NABU law that give the president a role in appointing the head of the bureau.
The measures were criticized by legal experts and anti-corruption activists as an effort by corrupt actors to take revenge on the NABU by providing an excuse for firing Sytnyk. Independent lawyers cast doubt on the legality of the Constitutional Court rulings.
In February the Cabinet of Ministers submitted a bill seeking to immediately fire Sytnyk and introduce a procedure that allows Zelensky to control the selection of a new NABU chief.
Three commission members for choosing a new NABU chief would be delegated by the presidentially controlled National Security and Defense Council, and six members, including three foreign experts, would be chosen by the Cabinet of Ministers – also a body loyal to Zelensky, according to the Cabinet bill.
In March The Cabinet submitted a revised version of the bill on Sytnyk’s dismissal.
According to this version, three members of the commission for choosing a new chief would be delegated by the presidentially controlled National Security and Defense Council and three by the Cabinet. Four members would be needed to make decisions.
The Cabinet claims that its bills aim to bring the NABU in line with Constitutional Court rulings as part of talks with the International Monetary Fund. However, the legislation may have the opposite effect, further disrupting lending from the institution, which has set NABU independence as a key precondition for future loans.
The IMF mission concluded in February that Ukraine needs to show more progress before it can receive another $700 million tranche under the existing stand-by lending arrangement.
Anti-corruption activists see the efforts to fire Sytnyk as Zelensky’s reaction to a NABU investigation into embezzlement during COVID-19 vaccine purchases and a NABU bribery case against Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff Oleh Tatarov. The President’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.
