You're reading: Zelensky lays out his 3-step plan to end constitutional crisis

President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced his plan to end the crisis that started in October when the Constitutional Court undermined the country’s anti-corruption institutions by several controversial rulings.

The court’s rulings threw the country into political turmoil and threatened its cooperation with the Western partners. For weeks, the president, parliament, and experts have discussed various scenarios for ending the crisis, reining in the court, and restoring the anti-corruption legislation it killed.

“This crisis has already led to very serious consequences,” Zelensky said on Nov. 27. “We worked hard to not lose entirely the support of our international partners, including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and other investors.”

At a meeting of the National Anti-Corruption Council late on Nov. 27, a month after the crisis started, Zelensky finally laid out his plan.

The three steps that Zelensky proposes to end the crisis are the following:

  • Restore the criminal liability for public officials who lie on their asset and income declaration. The Constitutional Court killed this law, ruling it unconstitutional. It led to illicit enrichment investigations against officials being closed, and several court sentences being canceled. Restoring the legislation won’t change that.
  • Restore the National Agency for Corruption Prevention’s right to monitor officials’ declarations, which the Constitutional Court took away.
  • Ensure that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau continues its work, and its chief Artem Sytnyk stays on the job, despite the fact that the Constitutional Court ruled his appointment unconstitutional.

The plan is far less radical than what Zelensky initially proposed: To fire the entire Constitutional Court through parliament and roll back their ruling that kills the illicit enrichment legislation, thus saving the cases and convictions of the past year. His radical proposal didn’t find much support in parliament, with lawmakers wary of voting for an unprecedented and possibly unconstitutional firing of the Constitutional Court.

Now, Zelensky suggests restoring the anti-corruption legislation going forward.

“Those who lied on their declarations in 2017, 2018, and 2019 won’t be punished,” Zelensky said on Nov. 27. “Our battle against corruption remains on pause.”

As for Sytnyk, whose bureau has been investigating cases that involve the Constitutional Court’s judges, he looks likely to preserve his job.

On Nov. 27, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal filed a bill to parliament that seeks to entrench Sytnyk in his position. The bill reads that “whoever is the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau when this law comes in force, stays on the job until they are replaced or their term runs out.” Sytnyk’s term runs out in April 2022.

While the suggested plan fixes the anti-corruption infrastructure, it doesn’t offer any measures to rein in the unaccountable Constitutional Court that has the power to cancel any future anti-corruption legislation and throw the country back into crisis.

As of now, the court’s work is on pause because it doesn’t have the quorum to meet: Several of its judges reportedly refused to come to the meetings. The Court denies that there is internal sabotage, and says it’s not meeting because several judges are sick with COVID-19.

The work of the court could have been unblocked in December, as the National Conference of Judges was preparing to meet and elect two new judges for the Constitutional Court, to fill the vacant seats and give the court its quorum.

But the administration won a delay on the issue. The Conference of Judges was persuaded to postpone its meeting for February due to the coronavirus pandemic.