Here is what’s happening in the fight to create a truly independent anti-corruption court: Ukraine’s politicians are clinging to numerous ways to prevent the establishment of a truly independent judicial system. Why? With corruption as pervasive as it is, with billions of dollars stolen from Ukrainians every year with impunity, politicians and their oligarchic backers are afraid to have professional police, prosecutors and courts.
The latest sign of obstruction and obfuscation came when, secretly at the last minute, a lawmaker in the president’s dominant 135-seat faction in parliament inserted amendments that effectively grant amnesty to officials currently charged with corruption by letting appeals take place in the discredited current court system.
The problems run deeper: The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine has limited powers that are continually under attack. Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky should be fired after wiretaps emerged that he is sabotaging cases. Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko is protecting corruption, not prosecuting it. Arsen Avakov is a political hack and a target of several investigations. He has no business running Ukraine’s Interior Ministry. The Security Service of Ukraine remains out of control with excessive powers. And the judges. How many can name a single judge? Few can, because they prefer to remain obscure, all the better to hide the sale of verdicts to the highest bidder or most powerful forces. All these reasons are why there hasn’t been a single criminal conviction for corruption of any consequence in Ukraine’s history. If ever there was a time for presidential leadership, that time is now, for without IMF and Western financing, Ukraine will again face a serious economic crisis. President Petro Poroshenko: Fix the legislation, start delivering justice and meet the other reasonable conditions demanded by Ukrainians and Ukraine’s Western friends.
