President Volodymyr Zelensky catapulted to power in 2019 on a promise of sweeping away Ukraine’s toxic corruption. “The spring will come, and we will plant them in the prisons,” his sharp-tongued teasing campaign slogan said.
However, while in office, Zelensky hasn’t yet managed to fulfill his pledge.
Ukraine ranked 115 of 139 countries on the absence of corruption criteria, according to the 2021 Rule of Law Index, published on Oct.14. The research examined three forms of corruption: bribery, improper influence by public or private interests, and misappropriation of public funds or other resources.
The report says that the worst corruption is in Ukraine’s judiciary power, police, and military.
The Rule of Law Index is published by the World Justice Project, a non-profit organization working to advance the rule of law worldwide and based in Washington D.C., Seattle, Singapore, and Mexico City.
Based on more than 138,000 households and 4,200 expert surveys, the research is aimed to measure how the rule of law is experienced and perceived by societies worldwide.
The report defines the effective rule of law as the one that protects people from injustice, reduces corruption and combats poverty and disease.
Besides corruption absence, the index’s experts analyzed seven key factors in order to measure the rule of law including: constraints on government powers, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, and civil and criminal justice.
Experts mention that for the second year in a row, in every region, most countries slipped backward or remained unchanged in their overall rule of law performance.
Nevertheless, Ukraine slightly improved the rule of law score in 2021 by less than 1%. The country ranked 74 of 139, rising five positions in a global rank.
But there is still a long way to go.
Ukraine is 7th out of the 14 countries in Eastern Europe and the Central Asian region. The regional leader is Georgia, which ranked 49th overall.
Ukraine showed its best performance in open government – the country is 51st in this ranking. At the same time, the country’s enforcement regulation is among the worst – 102nd in the world. Constraints on government powers and criminal justice are also among Ukraine’s poorest performing factors.
Ukraine’s fight against corruption
Ukraine continues to drag its feet on electing the chief of a unit responsible for prosecuting corrupt officials, Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) — the body decapitated in August 2020 after the controversial Nazar Kholodnytsky left his post.
On Oct. 9, the process of choosing Kholodnytsky’s successor stumbled yet again after the 11-member selection committee failed to gather a quorum for the final bidding.
The three committee members that didn’t appear were part of Zelensky’s 243-member Servant of the People faction quota.
Such blatant sabotage wasn’t left without a response from Ukraine’s western backers. Washington and Brussels, which have tied significant financial and military aid to Ukraine’s progress on reforms, including battling corruption, expressed their frustration in an official statement from the U.S. Embassy.
“The EU and the U.S. are greatly disappointed by unexplained and unjustifiable delays in the selection of the Head of SAPO, a crucial body in the fight against high-level corruption,” the statement reads.
President Zelensky has expressed concern about the recent delay, saying that the selection procedure must resume.
“I did not hear adequate explanations for the delay of the competition for the election of a new SAPO head. The members of the selection committee must perform their duties properly,” Zelensky wrote on Oct. 9 after the reaction from the embassy.
Yet, on Oct. 12, the committee once again didn’t convene. Hardly evidence that foreign concerns are being heard in the President’s Office.
SAPO oversees investigations carried out by NABU and is independent of the Prosecutor-General’s Office, potentially making it a potent tool in combating graft. The body also prosecutes cases in court brought forward against an individual by NABU.
Read more: Supreme Court paves the way for destroying judicial reform
SAPO and NABU were created after the 2013-14 EuroMaidan revolution that toppled Kremlin-ally former President Viktor Yanukovych amid a push to fight corruption that had left Ukraine among the poorest nations in Europe.
Many experts believe corruption is one of the major factors hindering Ukraine’s aspiration of joining the European Union.
