Those forecasts are proving to be right. First Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin penned a March 16 op-ed in Kyiv-based Law and Business weekly, essentially equating criticism with defamation and libel. He wants the ability to make such criticism a criminal offense, presumably punished by prison or fines, although he didn’t specify.

He seems to liken those who work in the judicial system as being part of a “divine” pursuit, suggesting that they should be immune from any criticism and pressure.

It’s hard to imagine such dangerously anti-democratic thoughts are being held by someone who wields such great powers as Kuzmin. He also seems to see conspiracies everywhere. He draws a connection between Victor Pinchuk and his father-in-law, ex-President Leonid Kuchma, and criticism that Kuzmin has received from Steven Pifer, the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, and Anders Aslund, an academic.

Democratic societies and great thinkers have long recognized that free speech is a cherished element of civic life. Criticism – even if it is unfair or untrue – is the mere expression of thoughts, not a criminal act. Truth is best found through the competition of free ideas, and a robust exchange of opinions. Such free speech rights are all the more important in keeping a check on the actions of public officials.

In Ukraine’s discredited criminal justice system, in the absence of independent judges and public trials by juries, prosecutors like Kuzmin have outsized roles in deciding who goes to prison. The actions of such public servants deserve great scrutiny, as do those of all public officials. Only the most extreme and malicious forms of falsehoods deserve any kind of punishment, and that should be financial and modest, not prison.

Threatening critics – whether they are journalists, academics or ordinary citizens – with criminal sanctions for their words alone would move Ukraine closer to a police state. Kuzmin, who has made what could turn out to be false allegations against ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and ex-President Leonid Kuchma, could – in a different political climate – be prosecuted for those remarks if what he is proposing comes into law.

If criticism is equated with libel and defamation and considered a crime, public debate would be silenced and independent journalism would cease to exist. Speaking one’s mind would become a crime. Such a law would run counter to democratic values everywhere. This is simply another attempt by those in power to shield their actions from scrutiny and put themselves above the law.