Reformer of the week – Vitaly Kasko
Prosecutor General Ruslan Riaboshapka has earned praise by appointing Vitaly Kasko as his first deputy on Sept. 5.
Kasko has the reputation of a reformer. He was a deputy prosecutor from 2014 to 2016 and helped prosecute the high-profile bribery case against top prosecutors Oleksandr Korniyets and Volodymyr Shapakin, known as “the diamond prosecutors.”
Kasko resigned as deputy prosecutor general in February 2016, saying that then-Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin had transformed the prosecutorial system into a corrupt “dead body” that “creates and tolerates total lawlessness,” as well as making it “a tool of political intimidation and profiteering.”
In April 2016, the Prosecutor General’s Office charged Kasko with illegally receiving two apartments from the state by fraud. Kasko argued that the cases were Shokin’s revenge for his criticism of his former boss. The case was closed the next year.
However, the appointment of Kasko and another deputy prosecutor general, Viktor Chumak, on Sept. 11 will be just a beautiful façade for an ugly agency unless Riaboshapka thoroughly purges corrupt prosecutors.
Anzhela Stryzhevska, Yuriy Stolyarchuk, Serhiy Kiz and Nazar Kholodnytsky remain deputy prosecutor generals. All of them have been connected to corruption scandals and have been accused of sabotaging criminal cases, although they deny the accusations.
Riaboshapka has said he was not planning to fire Kiz, who did not respond to requests for comment.
Kiz, whom investigator Sergii Gorbatuk has accused of blocking cases into the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution, was promoted to deputy prosecutor general in July. The Schemes investigative project reported, citing their sources, that Kiz was promoted due to the backing of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Bohdan.
Anti-reformer of the week – Andriy Dovbenko
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Bohdan, attended the wedding of Andriy Dovbenko, a controversial lawyer accused of running shady schemes at the Justice Ministry, on Ukraine’s Independence Day on Aug. 24, according to an investigation released by Bihus.info on Sept. 9.
Dovbenko did not respond to a request for comment, and Bohdan declined to comment.
Bohdan attended the wedding in the French resort of Saint Tropez.
Dovbenko’s new wife, Hanna Ogrenchuk, was appointed to a judicial reform commission formed by Bodhan in early August. Both Dovbenko and Ogrenchuk have been accused of having links to Oleksandr Hranovsky, an ex-lawmaker from former President Petro Poroshenko’s political party.
Dovbenko also used to be a lawyer for tycoon Serhiy Kurchenko, a top ally of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych.
According to a 2017 investigation by Bihus.info, Dobvenko has become the gray cardinal behind the Justice Ministry.
Specifically, proteges of Dovbenko have been appointed to many key jobs at the Justice Ministry, including in the bailiff service.
According to experts interviewed by Bihus.info, the bailiff service is one of the institutions most prone to corruption, with bailiffs taking bribes for either enforcing or refusing to enforce court decisions.
Bihus.info also described a scheme according to which bailiffs received bonuses worth millions of hryvnias for collecting debts. They have given a little-known person, Mykola Lysenko, the power of attorney to use their money. This triggered suspicions that Lysenko was simply an intermediary, and parts of their bonuses were being received by certain top officials. The Justice Ministry has denied accusations of wrongdoing.
Moreover, major private bailiffs – an institution recently introduced in Ukraine – are also closely linked to Dovbenko, according to Bihus.info.
