Ukraine's court cancels anti-corruption agency director appointment

Ukraine's court cancels anti-corruption agency director appointment
Artem Sytnyk's 2015 appointment as Director of the National Anti-corruption Bureau (NABU) has been ruled "unconstitutional" by Constitutional Court on August 28. / bne
By bne IntelliNews September 1, 2020

Ukraine’s Constitutional Court ruled as unconstitutional an order of former President Petro Poroshenko from April 2015 that appointed Artem Sytnyk to the position of director of the National Anti-corruption Bureau (NABU), Ukraine’s top corruption fighting agency, ukranews.com.ua reported on August 28.

The court heard the case 51 MPs submitted a petition that claimed that the appointment of the NABU head is not included in the list outlining the president’s powers, which is an exclusive list stipulated by the constitution.

Reacting to the event, NABU issued a press release on August 29 stating that the ruling does not mean the automatic dismissal of Sytnyk, because the exclusive list of reasons for the firing of the NABU director, stipulated by the law on NABU, does not include rulings by the Constitutional Court.

The stand off is the result of an ongoing war on NABU, which was set up at the insistence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as independent body outside of government control or influence and was charged with ending the endemic corruption that has bled the Ukrainian economy dry for decades.

NABU is the investigative part of a triumvirate that also includes the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), which carries out the prosecutions in parallel to the General Prosecutor’s Office, but is also entirely independent from the government’s control. The last piece was added last year, the anti-corruption court (ACC), which is another legal body outside of the government’s control.

As bne IntelliNews reported in an interview with Sytnyk in 2018, the agency has been facing an uphill battle and remains on the frontline in the campaign to end graft. Even two years ago shortly after NABU had been set up, the agency was frustrated by the government’s increasingly transparent efforts to block its work

Poroshenko himself resisted the creation of all these bodies vigorously. As bne IntelliNews has written elsewhere: corruption is the system in most of the countries of emerging Europe and legislators are very reluctant to create bodies that will hold them to account.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy was elected last April by a landslide partly on the promise to do something about the corruption, but he has disappointed by failing to follow through.

And again instead of standing up for Sytnyk, Zelenskiy used the scandal to besmirch his main political rival again. The office of President Zelenskiy issued a press release on August 29, warning of a “possible loss of power by the NABU director” and expressed its expectations of an efficient anti-corruption policy from NABU’s “acting director”.

Zelenskiy’s openly blamed his predecessor, Poroshenko, for his “hasty and speculative practice” in the formation of anti-corruption infrastructure “which went against the constitution”.

For its part NABU called the ruling politically motivated, recalling that the ruling emerged very soon after NABU released alleged audio recordings where some judges were discussing their numerous conspiracies, including the rulings of the Constitutional Court.

Founded in April 2015, just over a year after the Maidan revolution, which ousted previous president Viktor Yanukovych, NABU was expected to become the premier anti-corruption body. However, the agency soon locked horns with then president Poroshenko, who tried to stifle its activities. Only pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) allowed the bureau to go ahead.

"We expect in the coming days that there will more clarity on Sytnyk’s status, though Zelenskiy’s press release leaves little chance that Sytnyk is still seen by the president as NABU director," Alexander Paraschiy, an analyst at the Kyiv-based Concorde Capital brokerage, said in a research note. "If so, Ukraine’s chance to get any external financing in the West will be put under question, meaning Ukraine’s sovereign default risk increases.

"After last week’s dismissal of top anti-corruption prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky, Sytnyk was the only top Ukrainian official who has kept his position since the presidency of Poroshenko," Paraschiy went on to say. "Appointed under the supervision of IFIs, Sytnyk acted pronouncedly and independently from both Poroshenko and Zelenskiy.

"Therefore, Sytnyk’s possible dismissal can bring into question the independence of NABU, at least in the eyes of Ukraine’s Western partners," he concluded. "The very likely dismissal of Sytnyk will spoil Ukraine’s relationship with the IMF, which earlier reacted aggressively to any timid attempt to undermine Sytnyk’s position as NABU head, e.g. by changing law on NABU."

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