Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urgently called a closed-door meeting of the National Security and Defense Council over recent rulings of the Constitutional Court that effectively paralyzed the work of anti-corruption law enforcement agencies and endangered Ukraine’s relationship with the European Union, including its visa-free regime.
Zelensky stepped in to try to curb the crisis after the scandalous court issued a number of highly controversial rulings that undermine anti-corruption reform and is expected to issue more.
On Oct. 27, the Constitutional Court eliminated Ukraine’s electronic declaration system that obliged officials to openly disclose their assets by depriving the National Agency for Preventing Corruption (NAPC) of most of its powers. The judges deemed these powers unconstitutional and also canceled penalties for officials who lie in their asset declarations.
Specifically, the court ruled that public access to officials’ declarations and the NAPC’s authority to monitor and check officials’ declarations and lifestyle were among clauses of the corruption prevention law that violated the сonstitution.
Since 2015, all public officials in Ukraine have had to file very detailed declarations of assets and income. The declarations were publicly available on the NAPC’s website. The NAPC shut down the register of declarations on Oct. 28 following the controversial ruling.
This is the last and most serious in a series of the blows that the Constitutional Court has dealt to Ukraine’s anti-corruption system in the past weeks.
On Aug. 28, the same court ruled that then-President Petro Poroshenko’s 2015 decree to appoint Artem Sytnyk as head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) was unconstitutional. On Sept. 16, the Constitutional Court also ruled that some clauses of the law on the NABU were unconstitutional.
In all of those controversial rulings, several of the Constitutional Court’s judges had a conflict of interest. They are under investigation for failing to declare property, while several are also witnesses in a high-profile NABU investigation into corruption in the courts.
The Constitutional Court isn’t acting alone. On Oct. 26, the controversial Kyiv District Administrative Court used the Constitutional Court rulings as a pretext to order Sytnyk’s dismissal.
Zelensky’s office says that, after the National Security Council’s meetings, he will initiate draft laws to “prevent such situations from happening in the future.”
In reality, this means that, after the National Security Council identifies the Constitutional Court’s actions as a threat to Ukraine’s security, Zelensky might propose a draft law that would reboot the court and fire all of its 15 judges.
“The devastating blows inflicted on the country’s achievements in the fight against corruption and in corruption prevention in Ukraine cannot be ignored. The decisions of individuals whose actions are becoming increasingly socially dangerous have to be assessed immediately and rigorously,” Zelensky’s statement reads.
This is Zelensky’s second action to curb the courts’ attack on the anti-corruption infrastructure.
After the Kyiv District Administrative Court ruled to fire Sytnyk and 25,000 people signed a petition demanding Zelensky dissolve the court, he also reacted.
On Oct. 28, Zelensky issued a statement saying that, having received the petition, he initiated consultations with The High Council of Justice in order to “develop a transparent and correct procedure that would resolve the problem concerning the Kyiv District Administrative Court.”
