The establishment of the anti-corruption court is the final link missing from the criminal justice chain in Ukraine, and the public needs to keep pushing for it, according to Irene Khan, director general of International Development Law Organization (IDLO).
Khan, a Bangladeshi lawyer who for eight years headed human rights watchdog Amnesty International, was elected in 2011 to lead the IDLO, an intergovernmental organization dedicated to promoting rule of law, justice, and development.
The organization has been present in Ukraine since 2015, giving technical aid to its Ukrainian partners, including the office of the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, the Projects Office of the Interior Ministry, and civil society organizations fighting corruption, among others. Its main objective in Ukraine is to return confidence in public administration. The organization received more than 5 million euros from its donors since 2015 for the activities in Ukraine.
Khan visited Ukraine on Oct. 25-27 to meet with representatives of Ukraine’s government and civil society. In an interview with the Kyiv Post, she sounded carefully optimistic, but said that the reform lacks acceleration.
“Things are happening too slowly,” Khan said on Oct. 27. “There have been situations where change was taking place but then something else happened that countered the change. A price has been paid for going backward and forward.”
Concerns about justice reform
The issue of the anti-corruption court was on the top of Khan’s agenda. It came up, she said, in her meetings with anti-corruption civil activists and Special Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytskiy.
The establishment of a new, independent court that would tackle corruption cases has been intensely discussed over the past few months, after in September President Petro Poroshenko publicly denounced the project, advocating instead for an anti-corruption chamber within the regular court system, thus undermining the effort.
After a backlash from the civil society and some Western partners, Poroshenko finally spoke in support of the court.
Establishing an independent anti-corruption court is the only way to make the anti-corruption fight in Ukraine effective, according to Khan. Without it, the work done by the anti-corruption agencies established in the past two years – the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor (SAP) – is less effective: Today, the corruption cases they bring in are sent to the regular Ukrainian courts, which are discredited and known to be politically influenced.
“In the criminal justice system, there is a chain,” Khan said. “Investigation is the NABU, prosecution is the SAP, and what is now left is the final link in the chain. We have to complete this chain.”
In other countries, she said, corruption cases can be tackled by regular courts, but since in Ukraine the anti-corruption bodies have been made into a separate institution, the process needs to be finished.
“There are very serious concerns about whether this final step will happen or not,” Khan said. “If the court doesn’t come into being it will, of course, reduce the effectiveness of the NABU and SAP. There is pressure for the court and I hope that president will take into account all the concerns that have been expressed and recognize the need for this.”
She added that “we need to be optimistic and keep pushing for the best outcome.”
Growing frustration
If the anti-corruption court still doesn’t come through, Khan said that frustration will build both inside Ukraine, especially among prosecutors, and outside Ukraine, where it would undermine the country’s credibility.
Another issue threatening the credibility of Ukraine’s judicial reform is the botched selection of judges for the new Supreme Court. The selection, which was supposed to reboot the country’s highest judicial body, ended up by giving many compromised judges places in the court.
“The Supreme Court selection is an issue that needs to be looked into to build public confidence, because otherwise there’ll always be doubt about the court system,” Khan said.
The overall reform of the justice system “has to be looked at much more than has been done,” she added.
Asked about Ukraine’s leadership’s commitment to reform the country, Khan said that when pressure from civil society, the general public, and the international community all come together, it is hard to ignore.
“Like in any democracy you can’t ignore public opinion and civil society – and politicians are sensitive to that,” she said. “But frustration (among the people) is growing. The biggest risk is that the people will simply switch off. They need to stay committed to the change. There’s a lot of support for them internationally.”
