Legal battles intensify between anti-corruption officials

The Prosecutor General of Ukraine is preparing to name
Artem Sytnyk, the director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, a
suspect in several criminal cases, the pravda.com.ua news site reported on Aug.
21, citing anonymous sources in the prosecutor’s office. These cases involve
revealing materials obtained during the discovery phase (without the
anti-corruption prosecutor’s permission), revealing state secrets and giving
advanced notice of searches.

The Supreme Court of Ukraine refused the request of
the National Anti-Corruption Bureau to consider its appeal of a censure imposed
against the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecution, Nazar
Kholodnytskiy, by a disciplinary commission. The announcement was made on Aug.
21 by the Supreme Court press service. The bureau, led by Sytnyk, had been
seeking to dismiss Kholodnytskiy for his numerous procedural and ethical
violations, rather than allowing a simple censure and accompanying fine.

Zenon Zawada: These legal
battles between Ukraine’s leading anti-corruption officials are embarrassing,
both for the Ukrainian public and the Western authorities that demanded the
creation of these bodies in exchange for loans. The bureau led by Sytnyk and
prosecutor’s office led by Kholodnytskiy were supposed to work together to
prosecute corruption at the highest levels. Instead, they are continuing to
wage legal battles against each other, with the Presidential Administration and
Interior Ministry aligning themselves with Kholodnytskiy and civil society
organizations defending Sytnyk.

The anti-corruption cases that were supposed to
have been prepared by Sytnyk and Kholodnytskiy were supposed to have been
reviewed by the newly created Anti-Corruption Court, which the IMF had been
demanding for so long. Instead, their conflict already calls into question the
integrity of the Anti-Corruption Court, which has yet to be created. Needless
to say, these conflicts only harm the prospects for foreign investment in
Ukraine.