Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko's major challenge is to reform the inefficient and corrupt bureaucratic system left by his predecessor, Olena Lukash.
After
Lukash fled the country together with other allies of former
President Viktor Yanukovych during the mass murder of EuroMaidan
protesters in February 2014, Petrenko filled the vacant position.
“That
was probably the most difficult year in my life. As I arrived at the
Ministry of Justice on Feb. 27, 2014, immediately after my
appointment, I did not find most of heads of departments there,”
Petrenko said in an interview with the Kyiv Post. “We urgently
passed all the materials regarding alleged abusive and corrupt
practices to the Prosecutor General’s Office. I know nothing about
the whereabouts of Lukash.”
Lukash
is currently under investigation by the prosecutor’s office on two
counts, including her role in the murder of Maidan activists, but she
has not been served a notice of crimes. She is also on the EU
sanctions list, but might see them removed in March because Ukraine
failed to provide enough evidence of her alleged crimes.
Meanwhile,
Petrenko had his own challenges to confront. Although the central
office of Ministry of Justice a year ago employed some 700 people,
Petrenko says at most 10 people had been working alongside him on the
adoption of laws and reinstatement of constitutional order. “This
was the first time when I personally realized how inefficient,
unstructured and passive the whole system was,” he said. “I
simply could not put up with that.”
Petrenko
ended up firing a fifth of low-ranking employees (5,000 people) and
30 percent top officials (300 people) in various companies and
agencies that report to his ministry. More downsizing is yet to come.
An
audit of the ministry uncovered several companies that had fused with
it. “We were asked not to interfere as those relations have
benefited some parliamentarians and institutions a lot for years.”
Despite threats, the ministry eliminated at least three corrupt
schemes, including procurement of forms with the ministry’s
hologram for Hr 360 million per year, design and maintenance of
information registers and sales of confiscated property. “We saved
Hr 1 billion from the budget in 2014,” Petrenko said.
Corruption
is still a major issue, though. “I will never forget the woman from
Cherkasy Oblast who asked me to look in her eye and said that
employees of the Justice Ministry demanded a Hr 300 bribe for a death
certificate. Of course, I fired all those concerned, but only a full
renewal of staff will solve the problem.”
When
asked about the progress of lustration, or cleansing of his agency
based on a law passed after the revolution, Petrenko said: “We just
completed the first stage, which resulted in dismissal of 375 senior
officials.”
The second stage will be
carried out by the State Fiscal Service, which
deals with tax issues. It will continue
though the end of March and apply to employees of the Cabinet,
central executive authorities and the Ministry of Justice, which is
itself in charge of lustration.
Petrenko
says he already successfully passed a lustration check, which means
that he was not found to have illegally obtained property, or a
controversial political track record prior to this job.
Other
officials from the State Fiscal Service, the Prosecutor’s Office and
the Security Service, fired under the lustration law, have sought to
overturn their dismissals in court. There were some 100 of those, but
none of them got reinstated.
“Actually
there was one precedent when a local court (in Kharkiv) ruled in
favor of a prosecutor who was lustrated. However, due to the joint
efforts of the Ministry of Justice and the Prosecutor General’s
Office, the court’s decision was overturned (though an appeal) and
the case was closed. Consequently, courts have taken a wait-and-see
approach,” Petrenko says.
Petrenko
also defended Ukraine’s concept of property lustration, which
presumes that those who own a lot of real estate that cannot be
explained though their tax declarations, will be fired. Some
lawyers have argued that the procedure would be purely formal and
would not help fight corruption because the origin of officials’
property will not be checked.
Petrenko
disagrees. He argues that, if tax
authorities that carry out a lustration doubt the validity of
information stated in an official’s tax declaration due to its
inconsistency with other tax documents, the official must provide an
explanation to the authorities. He also urged civil society to
monitor such tax returns and officials’ activities to make
lustration more efficient.
The
lustration law has also been criticized for being allegedly at odds
with the Constitution and other laws. Ukrainian authorities have
announced plans to amend the law to address these concerns.
Petrenko
said that the amendments would be purely procedural. He believes they
will not invalidate lustration of top officials that took place up to
this point. When the Venice Commission, an advisory of the Council of
Europe, provides its recommendations, the Ministry of Justice will
immediately implement them, he said.
Among
other initiatives carried out by the ministry is the opening of
various registers and reform of court martial and state
registration service over the next two years. “If I turn these
endeavors into reality, I will be certain I did not waste
time as a justice minister,” Petrenko says.
