Ukraine anti-corruption bureau vows to avoid political persecution

Artem Sytnyk, the newly appointed head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, said on May 7 he won’t allow any politically motivated cases to be pursued. “I don’t rule out that our detectives will have cases that will be deemed political persecution, but the openness and transparency of the bureau’s work are written into law, which is the main guarantee that real political persecution won’t occur,” he told the Ukrayinski Novyny news agency. He said he’s aiming for some of its 100 planned detectives to begin work as soon as possible and work will begin on creating a database of corrupt officials. He said he hopes to include the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations in the bureau’s work.

Zenon Zawada: Bureau detectives are authorized to investigate crimes based on three categories: crimes committed by high-ranking officials, crimes committed against high-ranking officials and crimes involving damges that exceed USD 30,000.

The ability of the bureau to be impartial depends on the political climate, which we observe to be extremely fragile and polarized from rivalries between oligarchs and politicians. In this context, we expect the bureau to target the third category of crimes and avoid the first two for the most part, at least for the first year or two of its operation.

Therefore, it will avoid targeting members of parliament or oligarchs, unless they are not sufficiently politically protected and can serve as convenient scapegoats. This will also enable the bureau to avoid accusations of political persecution that would undermine its work from the very outset.

Only when the bureau gains its grounding and public confidence in investigating the lower rungs of power can it begin to aim for the bigger criminals. So we don’t think they will be intimidated or much affected by the bureau’s existence. Any attempt to pursue a criminal case against a well-connected, high-ranking politician or businessman could lead to the bureau’s undoing from the outset.