The Constitutional Court of Ukraine on Sept. 16 limited the president’s influence on the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), a key investigative agency.
The court declared unconstitutional several clauses of the Law on NABU, including those that grant the president the right to create NABU, formally appoint its chief, appoint members of the commission that selects the chief of NABU and the audit commission under the presidential quota.
The court said that the Verkhovna Rada has to immediately submit legislation regulating NABU in accordance with the ruling.
The clauses that were ruled unconstitutional will now become void in three months.
The Constitutional Court’s ruling was prompted by a petition filed by 50 members of parliament, most of them from the 44-member pro-Russian faction of the Opposition Platform and several associated with oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. At least one of the signatories is the subject of a NABU investigation.
In the petition, they protest the president’s power over NABU, claiming that the agency belongs to the executive branch of power and therefore shouldn’t be influenced by the president, because it “can lead to a change of the balance of power.” In Ukraine, the presidency is separate from the executive branch.
The ruling comes as the latest in a series of major setbacks to the fight against corruption in Ukraine.
Earlier, on Aug. 28, the Constitutional Court declared that former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had abused his power when he appointed Artem Sytnyk to head NABU in 2015.
The court argued that the Ukrainian constitution does not grant the president the authority to appoint the NABU chief.
While the ruling did not result in Sytnyk’s immediate firing, it undermined his authority to lead the anti-corruption agency and made his sacking more likely.
Anti-corruption activists have viewed the ruling as a politically motivated attempt to destroy an agency that has investigated alleged corruption by top-level officials.
If Sytnyk is fired, it will “jeopardize Ukraine’s relationship with foreign partners and the International Monetary Fund,” Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, told the Kyiv Post earlier this month.
Read also: Why authorities are trying to kill NABU’s most high-profile investigation
Lawyers have also called the legality of the ruling into question. They note that, while the constitution does not grant the president the right to appoint the NABU chief, the NABU law does. The law also stipulates conditions under which he can be fired. A Constitutional Court ruling is not one of them.
Oleksandr Lemenov, head of anti-corruption watchdog StateWatch, has argued that the court cannot fire Sytnyk and the president cannot remove him by decree.
In the wake of the decision, the ambassadors of the G7 countries in Ukraine expressed support for NABU’s independence.
This comes as the NABU is actively taking on top-level corruption, including alleged schemes spearheaded by top Zelensky allies.
On Sept. 15, the NABU said it had drafted bribery charges against Oleksandr Yurchenko, a lawmaker from Zelensky’s party. The charges were blocked by Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova.
The NABU has also investigated abuse of power and bribery cases into videos implicating Denys Yermak, the brother of Zelensky’s current chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, in corruption. The videos showed Denys Yermak considering candidates for government jobs and discussing receiving money from some of them.
The Yermak brothers have not denied the authenticity of the videos, but Denys Yermak claimed they were taken out of context.
The latest attempt to oust Sytnyk could be revenge for his efforts to prosecute an obstruction of justice and corruption case against influential Judge Pavlo Vovk, according to anti-corruption activists.
