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HOT ANTICORRUPTION NEWS / Issue #153
September 25, 2020
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Today's issue:
- High Representative Josep Borell reaffirmed the EU's strong support of anti-corruption reforms;
- High Anti-Corruption Court refused to reopen Rotterdam+ case;
- Failures of the recent reform of the regional prosecutor's offices;
- NAPC is under pressure from the State Bureau of Investigation and Constitutional Court;
- Kharkiv police persecute local activist for pro-Ukrainian demonstrations;
- recommended reading
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High Representative Josep Borell reaffirmed the EU's strong support of anti-corruption reforms
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On September 22, the EU's High Representative Vice-President Josep Borell visited Kyiv. He stressed the urgent need to enhance the rule of law and develop the fight against corruption. During his meeting with President Zelenkyi he insisted in particular on the necessity to ensure transparent, merit-based and de-politicised selection processes for the anti-corruption authorities.
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High Anti-Corruption Court refused to reopen Rotterdam+ case
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On September 24, the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine refused to reopen the case of the so-called Rotterdam+ coal pricing scheme. The court has found the grounds for continuation of investigation insufficient by stating that there is not enough evidence confirming the event of the crime. The decision will be appealed to the Appellate Chamber.
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Failures of the recent reform of the regional prosecutor's offices
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The reform of the regional prosecutor's offices is coming to an end. However, according to the account of a member of the attestation commission, the process turned into the legalization of existing staff of regional prosecutor's offices by public hands. If members of the commission had an appropriate amount of time and resources, the number of prosecutors, who would not have passed interviews, should have been higher.
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The main reason why the reform is unlikely to be welcomed by both society and some prosecutors themselves is inherent opportunity to circumvent it, which Iryna Venediktova is diligently using. The Prosecutor General "saved" some prosecutors from attestation by transferring them to the Prosecutor General’s Office to circumvent the reform while their colleagues were passing stages of testing and interviews.
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NAPC is under pressure from the State Bureau of Investigation and Constitutional Court
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On September 21, the head of the NAPC Oleksandr Novikov informed that the leadership of the State Bureau of Investigation is trying to put pressure on the NAPC, because the latter started an investigation of conflicts of interest in actions of the heads of the SBI, Oleksandr Babikov and Olekdsandr Sokolov
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On September 24, the head of the Constitutional Court filed a lawsuit to Kyiv District Administrative Court (KDAC) to stop order of the Head of NAPC to disclose information on conflict of interests of the judges of the Constitutional Court. KDAC temporary stoped the order.
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Kharkiv police persecute local activist for pro-Ukrainian demonstrations of 2015
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Kharkiv police are pressing charges against local activist Dmytro Oliynyk for organizing pro-Ukrainian demonstration near the office of the "Opposition Bloc" (Party of Regions) in Kharkiv in 2015. At that time, Ukrainian activists were facing Russian militia and thugs, some conflicts were happening. There was no information about the proper investigation of these events in 2015-2019 until this moment. More information on the situation is available at Dmytro's facebook page.
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