President Petro Poroshenko on Sept. 15 rejected the idea of creating independent anti-corruption courts in the near future once again.
Poroshenko said during his opening speech at the Yalta European Strategy forum that an anti-corruption panel within the Supreme Court could be created in October but argued that it would take too long to create an independent anti-corruption court.
Ukraine desperately needs an independent court capable of convicting corrupt officials prosecuted by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, with the current corrupt and politicized judiciary incapable of doing so.
Anti-corruption courts would be created via a transparent procedure with the help of foreigners to guarantee their independence and professionalism, while anti-corruption panels would be set up within Ukraine’s unreformed and politicized judiciary and are unlikely to be independent and to jail corrupt officials, Ukrainian non-governmental organizations have argued.
Poroshenko asked foreigners from Europe and the United States to raise hands if there are anti-corruption court in their countries, and most did not raise them. He said that anti-corruption courts exist only in third-world countries like Kenya, Uganda and Malaysia and questioned their efficiency.
Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry challenged Poroshenko’s logic, arguing that every court in the United States is effectively an anti-corruption one, and a special investigator is investigating a case against the president.
Poroshenko’s critics also argue that it is exactly third-world countries with endemic corruption that need special anti-graft courts, since their judiciaries are dysfunctional. Poroshenko said that an anti-corruption court might be created only in 2019 or 2020, after his presidential term is over.
In July European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker triggered a controversy by saying that Poroshenko had persuaded him that Ukraine should create an anti-corruption panel within the existing Supreme Court, instead of establishing independent anti-corruption courts.
The recent competition for the new Supreme Court, which is expected to have an anti-corruption panel, has been criticized as non-transparent and manipulated, and 25 percent of the 120 Supreme Court nominees deemed to be corrupt or dishonest have been negatively assessed by the Public Integrity Council, a civil society watchdog.
The argument on a lack of time has also been dismissed by Poroshenko’s opponents. Earlier, Poroshenko was accused of sabotaging the introduction of an independent anti-corruption court for more than a year due to what critics believe to be the fear of such a court potentially trying his allies. He and his party have failed to submit a bill on an anti-corruption court. Poroshenko has also refused to support a bill submitted by opposition lawmakers to create such a court.
Meanwhile, David Lipton, a deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, urged Ukraine to create independent anti-graft court in a Sept. 15 interview with the Yevropeiska Pravda online newspaper.
