HOT ANTICORRUPTION NEWS / Issue #115
September 14, 2019
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Today's issue:
- update on Zelensky’s anti-corruption draft laws;
- Qualification Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors refused to hold Kholodnytskyi accountable. Once again;
- a new Rada delegate to the selection panel of members of state banks' supervisory boards;
- "Serpom": a case study from Ukraine;
- Surkis era: Schemy journalistic investigation
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Update on Zelensky’s anti-corruption draft laws
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A number of President's draft laws passed the first reading over the week. The draft law on NACP #1029 was supported by 283 votes. The amendments will be sumitted by the shortened 7-day procedure.
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Draft law #1031 on illicit enrichment and civil forfeiture, #1009 on amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code, #1025 on the jurisdiction of the High Anticorruption Court, #1032 on the prosecutor's office reform were also adopted in the first reading with the shortened procedure of preparation for the second one. The committees will consider amendments next week and the draft laws might be voted in full next Thursday-Friday.
The draft law #1008 on judicial governance bodies also passed the first reading but will be considered by the full procedure, meaning that the amendments will be collected for 14 days. We are convinced that for the new commissions, which will be established by this draft law, to be effective, the international experts should be given a crucial role, as they had in the selections of anticorruption judges. During the Committee hearing on September 9, the representatives of the EU and the US also raised this concern among a few others.
See the full text of our analysis of Zelensky's bills.
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Qualification Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors refused to hold Kholodnytskyi accountable. Once again
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The Commission closed a proceeding which was based on AntAC's appeal against Kholodnytskyi regarding false statements in the e-declaration due to expiry of the limitation. Also, the Commission disagreed that Kholodnytskyi has violated anything.
AntAC submitted a complaint in May 2019 regarding Kholodnytskyi's 2016-2017 e-declarations. The violations were detected by the National Agency for Corruption Prevention.
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| Kholodnytskyi lowered the income from the sale of property by 25,000 UAH. He also filed false statements regarding the money on bank accounts and did not note he had lent money to the third parties. In total, false statements amounted to 135,000 UAH in 2016 e-declaration. The same violations were revealed in his 2017 declaration. The law on prosecutor's office foresees that the violation of submission of the e-declaration is ground for bringing a prosecutor to disciplinary liability. |
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Oleksandr Dubynskyi will take part in the selection of members of state banks' supervisory boards
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Dubynskyi is an MP of Sluga Narodu faction and was delegated to the selection panel by the Rada Committee on Finance and Taxes. The selection panel consists of five representatives (three Cabinet delegates, one President's and one from the Rada).
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It will select six independent members of the supervisory boards of three state banks: Pryvatbank, Oshchadbank and Ukreximbank.
Previously, Dubynskyi worked as a journalist at 1+1 TV channel. According to Dnipro mayor Borys Filatov, oligarch Kolomoisky has an influence on Dybynskyi. Detector Media also claims that while working at the channel (in 2010-2019), Dubynskyi has consistently upheld the interests of the channel owner. He has published a number of biased materials, including the ones against Ulana Suprun and Valeria Gontareva.
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“Serpom”: how we use social media to mobilize citizens to hold crooked politicians accountable
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In June 2018, one year before the parliamentary elections, Ukrainian NGO AntAC launched online project “Serpom” (“Rating Reaper”).
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It is aimed at mobilizing people to hold Members of Parliament politically accountable for their anti-reform/dishonest/corrupt conducts. The project operates via communication campaigns targeted at citizens of the constituencies where crooked MPs were elected or ran.
During the most active phase of the project on July 1-19, 2019, immediately before 2019 parliamentary elections, project campaigns reached out to a 3.6 million audience in total.
78% of MPs who ran for the Parliament and had earlier crossed the “red lines” lost elections, in part due to the impact of this project. The most effective “Serpom” campaigns were those against tainted candidates who lost their election by a narrow margin of around 3,000 votes. See full brief about the case study from Ukraine.
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Surkis Era: newly appointed SBU chief, Zelenskyy’s assistant, three presidents, MPs and oligarchs partied at the anniversary of Medvedchuk’s associate - Schemy
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August 31 was the release date of the film “100 Days of the President” featuring interview with the Head of State Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In this interview, the head of the country stressed that he had questions for Viktor Medvedchuk whose daughter’s godfather is Vladimir Putin, and the sources for financing his party “Opposition Platform – For Life”. In the snap election to the Rada, it came second and brought to the parliament 37 MPs.
“Regarding Mr Medvedchuk’s Party, there are quite a few significant questions – is it his party? Is it a temporary association? Also, who are they? There are big questions about where they got the money to finance the party. We have got the answers – the cash volumes and what country and what source they are getting it from. And it will be a very public story that will end very badly,” – claimed Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the interview at the end of August. As for Viktor Medvedchuk, he later called these allegations absurd.
“Schemy” investigative project decided to verify the sincerity of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s words and invited themselves to the celebration of the seventieth birthday of MP Hryhoriy Surkis – one of Viktor Medvedchuk’s longtime associates as well as one of the key official sponsors of his party “Opposition Platform – For Life”. And now journalists happen to have big questions as well. And, quite possibly, it will be a very public story too. Full investigation.
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