HOT ANTICORRUPTION NEWS / Issue #100
April 26, 2019
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Today's issue:
- Volodymyr Zelenskyi won presidency;
- time bombs for reforms achievements that are lying in courts;
- Lutsenko's tries to keep his job, but will this help?
- update on Handziuk's case
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Volodymyr Zelenskyi won presidency
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We wish good luck to the new President and his team in conducting genuine reforms and maintaining Ukraine's pro-European course of development.
Together with the investigative journalists will keep closely monitoring their activity.
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We would like to remind that the society still awaits for Zelenskyi's nominations for key posts of Foreign Affairs and Defence Ministers, Prosecutor General, head of the Security Service and head of the President's Administration.
Earlier, Zelenskyi supported anticorruption and judicial agendas, which were offered by the coalitions of CSOs.
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Time bombs for reforms achievements that are lying in courts
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On April 18, Kyiv District Administrative Court passed a ruling which recognized unlawful the nationalization of Privatbank. This is not the first and obviously not the last time that the court hits the headlines in Ukrainian and international media.
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Together with the Constitutional Court’s recent ruling to decriminalize illicit enrichment, the trend is obvious: non-reformed courts might dangerously quickly backslide existing reforms’ achievements. A number of time bombs against NABU, anticorruption court, e-declarations system and other reforms are currently lying on courts’ shelves and might soon explode.
This week the Constitutional Court was supposed to consider an appeal on the unconstitutionality of NABU's right to file lawsuits to invalidate civil agreements which contain violations detected during the investigation (submitted by Kolomoisky's plant). In addition, media reported that the Court also planned to consider and uphold the appeal on the unconstitutionality of the e-declaration system itself and criminal liability for false statements in the e-declaration. The decisions on both issues were not made so far.
For more details and possible solutions see our op-ed for Kyivpost.
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Lutsenko's tries to keep his job,
but will this help?
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Next day after Volodymyr Zelenskyi stated that Lutsenko is an old guard and new people will be appointed, the PGO announced criminal charges against close allies of Poroshenko (former head of President's Administration Borys Lozhkin, deputy head of President's Administration Oleksiy Filatov and former head of the National Bank Valeria Gontarieva). More details.
Earlier, at the end of March, prosecutor Kostiantyn Kulyk announced that the PGO handed notices of suspicion to these same people. However, this information was then almost immediately rebutted by the PGO spokesperson. She claimed that the notices of suspicion were announced in violation of the law. So no more violations after Zelenskyi's victory?
Moreover, back in September 2018, Lutsenko said that he would resign after the presidential elections. In less than a year, last week he has already changed his mind and announced he was not going to leave.
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Update on Handziuk's case
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The prosecutor's office re-qualified charges against the top suspect in Handziuk's case Vladyslav Manger from organization of murder to ordering of beating.
This caused the outcry among the activists, who held a rally near Lutsenko's house demanding justice.
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U.S. Embassy rewarded Kateryna Handziuk with an international award "Woman of Courage". It was received by Kateryna's father Viktor Handziuk.
Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch called for impartial and prompt investigation and bringing to liability those who stand behind the crime.
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