Ex-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko abused his power when he appointed Artem Sytnyk as head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine in 2015, the Constitutional Court announced on Aug. 28.
According to Ukraine’s law, the appointment of NABU chief is beyond the president’s jurisdiction, so it is considered unconstitutional.
The Constitutional Court’s decision does not immediately oust Sytnyk from the office. According to NABU, only the president can revoke the decree about his appointment.
Experts disagree: when the Constitutional Court declared that the president cannot appoint a top anti-corruption official, he also has no right to dismiss him, thus, the authorities have to develop a new procedure, said Stanislav Shevchuk, the former head of the Constitutional Court.
According to Shevchuk, it is not yet clear what this procedure will be.
In response to NABU’s decree, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Sytnyk’s appointment in 2015 is the example of “hasty and often speculative” policy of Poroshenko’s administration.
On the contrary, NABU called the Constitutional Court’s decision “politically motivated.”
More than 50 Ukrainian lawmakers, including Alexander Dubinsky, Maxim Buzhansky and Alexander Kunitsky from the ruling Servant of the People party requested Ukraine’s Constitutional Court to investigate Sytnyk’s appointment.
The controversial politicians Viktor Medvedchuk and Ilya Kyva from the pro-Russian Opposition Platform party also joined them.
Sytnyk has many enemies in the government, including Medvedchuk, the Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.
Among NABU’s chief biggest investigations connected to Kolomoisky are the cases of PrivatBank and Ukrnafta that cost Ukraine over Hr 10 billion.
In 2018 Sytnyk also investigated the case of Avakov’s son who was accused of embezzling Hr 14 million by supplying backpacks to the Interior Ministry at inflated prices.
In a nterview with the Kyiv Post earlier in February Sytnyk admitted that his powerful enemies want to take him down.
“They don’t want there to be an agency that isn’t under anyone’s control,” he said.
However, his dismissal can impact all anti-corruption institutions in Ukraine and worsen the country’s image.
“It is a coordinated attack, not one hit. And Western partners see it,” the Ukrainian anti-corruption activist Vitaliy Shabunin said.
