President Petro Poroshenko on Jan. 14 defended his decision not to fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who has failed to investigate and prosecute high-profile criminal cases since his appointment in February.
Speaking at a Jan. 14 news conference, Poroshenko didn’t challenge arguments that Shokin is a failure. Instead, he said that the Prosecutor General’s Office would become less powerful as prosecutors are deprived of anti-corruption and investigative functions.
Shokin has come under intense fire because he has failed to take a single corruption case against ex-President Viktor Yanukovych and his top allies to trial, along with a host of other high-profile suspects, including allies of Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
Another critique is that little progress has been made on the investigation into the murder of more than 100 protesters during the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution that prompted Yanukovych to flee power.
“Over the whole 25 years of independence, there has been no prosecutor general that society was happy with,” Poroshenko said. “I won’t go down the path of replacing the prosecutor general.”
Instead, he said that he would change the law enforcement system.
However, even on that score, Shokin is accused of derailing reform and installing loyalists. More than 80 percent of top local prosecutors chosen in a recent hiring process turned out to be incumbent top prosecutors, and not a single person from outside the prosecutorial system was hired.
Poroshenko boasted that Ukrainian authorities had created an independent Anti-Corruption Bureau in April and appointed an anti-corruption prosecutor in November.
But Poroshenko did not mention that lawmakers and EU and U.S. officials
had accused Shokin of trying to sabotage the selection of an independent
anti-corruption prosecutor. The prosecutor general appointed four controversial
prosecutors to the commission that vetted candidates, and reportedly lobbied
for a loyalist to take the job.
At the news conference, Poroshenko also signed a law transferring investigative functions from the Prosecutor General’s Office to the yet-to-be-created State Investigation Bureau.
Critics were skeptical about Poroshenko’s arguments.
“Poroshenko is right, it doesn’t make much sense to fire Shokin now,”
Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, wrote on Facebook. “He has already fulfilled his tasks: finished derailing
investigations (against Yanukovych-era officials on the E.U.) sanctions list
and legalized old prosecutorial clans through a fake hiring process. After
this, it’s necessary to fire not Shokin but the president, who has covered up
for him.”
