Ukraine politicians plan to eliminate prosecutorial immunity from MPs

The politicians currently consulting to form the next coalition government reached a consensus on the need to remove prosecutorial immunity from MPs, an advisor to the president, Mykola Tomenko, told the 5 Kanal television network on Nov. 10. The legislation will consult of limitations that protect MPs from politically motivated prosecution, he said. A special procedure will be created to pursue a criminal case against an MP, he said. Lustration of judges will begin and a simplified procedure will be drafted to review their conduct and prosecute them, Tomenko said. The coalition agreement will provide for open party list voting and enhanced local government authority, he said. Participants in the talks are also discussing reducing the number of MPs in parliament and local councils, he said.

A second lustration phase will begin on Nov. 10 and will apply to ministers, directors of central executive organs and employees of the Justice Ministry, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said on Nov. 10 Ihor Alekseyev, the deputy justice minister, as reported by the Interfax-Ukrayina news agency. At least 36 directors of central executive organs will be subject to lustration, said Ostap Semarak, who leads the secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers. His secretariat is also being reviewed, he said.

Zenon Zawada: Removing prosecutorial immunity from MPs would be an important milestone for the new government to show that it’s serious about reforming government and weeding out corruption. Indeed all the suggested legislation aimed at cleaning up government is needed.

Yet whether this legislation is implemented at all, and just how the lustration effort is conducted, is even more critical and will determine the success of the new coalition government. Unfortunately, current practice leads us to believe that those with ties to the main political players will remain immune (including the key figures of the administration of former President Viktor Yanukovych).

If that’s the case, such reform efforts will be considered a failure. In the worst case, it will result in political persecution of political rivals, or those bureaucrats not connected with the new government and its players. That has the potential to foment enormous divisions and fuel support for the Putinist opposition, as was the case in Georgia, where it returned to power and removed from government the team of former President Mikheil Saakashvili.

We can’t evaluate the lustration efforts that have taken place so far because it’s not clear who exactly was dismissed and who was appointed to replace them (and how they were appointed).