Kuzmin acknowledged the obvious: prosecutors wield too much power – of arrest, investigation, charging. Considering the 99 percent criminal conviction rate before judges (jury trials in this nation almost never happen), it appears also that prosecutors determined guilt simply by deciding whom to charge and for what.
The much-feared prosecutor, reviled by critics as a political henchman for his relentless prosecutions of President Viktor Yanukovych’s political opponents, says all will change under the new criminal procedure code that came into effect last November – replacing a Soviet-era code designed to monopolize power in the communist-appointed prosecutor’s office.
We hope so.
Ukraine will know its moving closer to democracy when citizen juries decide whether a defendant is guilty or not. Everyone knows rampant corruption and verdict-buying goes on in Ukraine’s courts. This will be harder to do in a jury system. Taking the decision of guilt or innocence out of the hands of judges and prosecutors will make them less susceptible to accusations of political persecution, as in the case of imprisoned ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Investigative powers need to belong to police, not the prosecutor’s office, to help create institutional checks and balances. Non-violent criminals who present no flight risk should not be jailed before their trials, which must be held in a speedy manner. Provisions for public defenders must be strengthened. Special prosecutors answering only to parliament must be appointed to tackle accusations against the president and other high-ranking politicians. It’s too much to expect the General Prosecutor’s Office, which is subservient to the executive branch, to investigate their own bosses.
Kuzmin deserves credit for sitting for more than two hours to give answers to unscripted questions, even though some of his explanations were unconvincing when it came to why he went after Tymoshenko, his defense of his proposal to criminalize defamation (he said he was simply trying to outlaw threats — which are already against the law — and not speech, as feared), and other topics. Readers can judge for themselves by reading the entire transcript of the interview online.
There is improvement. Former European Parliament President Pat Cox and former Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski have mentioned the new criminal code as a source of progress. It led to a 35 percent decrease in the number of pre-trial detentions this year, “which means that 11,000 people are not arrested, and 11,000 families are not devastated by these old rules,” Kwasniewski said.
That’s a good start. But much more needs to be done if Ukraine is to have an effective, humane and fair criminal justice system that punishes the guilty and spares the innocent.
