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Ukraine’s government apparently sees and hears no evil about its performance, and now it wants civil servants to speak no evil as well.

A new Cabinet of Ministers resolution on rules of ethical behavior for civil servants, which was approved on Feb. 11, quietly came into force on March 1. It bans civil servants from criticizing the institutions they work for and requires them to “put every effort into forming a positive image of Ukraine.”

But free thinkers and vocal critics who aren’t silenced or intimidated by the new policy say the resolution just makes Ukraine look even worse.
Petro Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker Mustafa Nayyem told the Kyiv Post the issue is one of civil rights.

Free speech violation

“Yes, we have a ban on making public information that is only for internal use. That’s normal. But banning officials from making criticisms is a direct violation of freedom of speech,” Nayyem said. “Criticism is not always about disclosing insider information.”

Nayyem compared the “no criticism rule” to military discipline under which a soldier must unconditionallyfulfill the orders of his commander.

Odesa Oblast Governor Mikheil Saakashvili clearly doesn’t intend to be a loyal soldier for the current government. Speaking from the stage of his touring anti-corruption forum at its latest stop in Vinnytsia on March 1, he vowed to continue criticizing the government.

“Today the Cabinet has approved a resolution designed to forbid us from launching such forums and talking to you,” Saakashvili told the audience. “The government wants officials to stop criticizing its actions. I will break the new rules! I think this resolution is stupid, and I will keep criticizing them.”

Saakashvili factor

Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko said the government’s resolution is a direct swipe at Saakashvili.

“The approval of this code is an attempt by (Prime Minister Arseniy) Yatsenyuk to break Saakashvili’s wave of criticism,” Leshchenko told the Kyiv Post. “Saakashvili is the only state official who constantly questions Yatsenyuk’s competence. So this resolution might as well be called ‘A Ban on Saakashvili’s Criticism.’”

Announcing its new ethical behavior code for civil servants, the government spun the measure as part of ongoing efforts to ensure the transparency of governance in Ukraine.

“The government has introduced new standards of ethical behavior for civil servants in order to regain the trust of its citizens,” reads a government statement on the new rules.

Civil service reform

Civil servants and officials will from now on have the shared rules of ethical behavior in the workplace, and will also be protected from coming under any kind of pressure from businessmen or political forces, the Cabinet statement reads.

Yatsenyuk adviser Danylo Lubkivsky told Ukrainska Pravda that the European Union approves new measures. “Our European partners appreciate the new rules of conduct for state employees, especially the demand to withhold public criticism of authorities and other state officials,” Lubkivsky was quoted as saying.

But the government’s definitions of transparency, dignity, loyalty and integrity, as set out in its resolution, are open to question.

For example, the integrity of officials is defined as faithfully serving the country and forming a positive image of the nation, while loyalty implies no criticism.

Common practice

Nevertheless, political analyst Taras Berezovets told the Kyiv Post that an unspoken rule of not criticizing the government is common in civil services around the world.

“For example, in Israel there is a strict ban on criticizing the state during anti-terrorist operations carried out by the government,” Berezovets said. “As we all know, Israel is constantly at war, so the ban is effectively permanent.”

Nayyem, a vocal critic of the current government, isn’t affected by the new code because lawmakers are not state officials – unlike prosecutors, ministers or employees of state administrations.

Nayyem said he still can’t believe the government approved such a “nonsense” resolution.

Silencing critics

“Today the main conflicts our government and other state institutions have to face are internal, he said, citing public criticism of government corruption by former Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius, former Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaliy Kasko and current Deputy Prosecutor General Davit Sakvarelidze.

Abromavicius, who resigned on Feb. 3, was the first of Ukraine’s “reformist” ministers to lift the curtain on what he said were ongoing corruption schemes in state enterprises.

Abromavicius accused Poroshenko’s business partner, lawmaker Ihor Kononenko, of angling to establish control over state-owned enterprises under the Economy Ministry’s jurisdiction. Abromavicius’s claims provoked an investigation and triggered a deeper political crisis.

Kasko and Sakvarelidze have also complained about the lack action against corruption in the General Prosecutor’s Office, a widely distrusted institution whose 18,000 prosecutors are seen as protecting corruption rather than fighting it. Kasko resigned on Feb. 15, and issued a public statement claiming Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was sabotaging efforts to stamp out corruption.

Shokin was reported to have resigned the day after Kasko, but the prosecutor general has yet to be formally dismissed by parliament, and no replacement has been nominated by the president.

How to punish?

The new civil service ethical behavior code also imposes total discipline: state officials are obliged to be conscientious in fulfilling all the decisions made by the Cabinet, Verkhovna Rada, and president, as well as his or her direct superior, without question.

In addition, the code bans state workers from letting their political views influence their work. They are barred from wearing or display political symbols, or giving “public demonstrations of their political sympathies.”

The Cabinet resolution includes a warning that violators of the rules will be prosecuted, but Berezovets is unsure how that is going to work, given that there’s no law in Ukraine that stipulates punishment for ethics violations. Civil servants might face other forms of retribution, he said.

“As I know, in our government they always find ways to punish critics. There are various ways: salary cuts, dismissal for underperformance. The most popular way to get rid of an unfavorable official is to make him fail the re-attestation exam that civil servants have to pass every two years,” Berezovets said.

The Cabinet’s statement reads that its resolution is based on European ethics rules, particularly the Polish model of maximum transparency of state institutions.

David Stulik, the press officer at the European Union Delegation to Ukraine, said that many modern public administrations ban civil servants from publicly criticizing the authorities and the government institutions for which they work.

“Public service should be apolitical and entirely professional,” Stulik said, noting that he has signed a similar standard ethical code – as is required of all EU employees.
The text of the civil service ethical code can be read on Cabinet of Ministers website here.