Poroshenko illegal enrichment bill worse than earlier norms, expert says

Both Ukrainian President Poroshenko and contender Yulia
Tymoshenko announced on Feb. 28 they have submitted legislation to parliament
to replace the legal statute on illegal enrichment that the Constitutional Court ruled to overturn this week. The
ruling sparked outrage among Ukraine’s anti-corruption activists, who accused
the court of fulfilling an order from the president. In his response to the
criticism, Poroshenko ordered the registration and immediate approval of new
legislation which he said in a Feb. 28 Twitter post “takes into account all the
concerns of the court.”

Yet the president’s legislation is not only worse than
the overruled statute (approved in 2015 in line with Western standards) in
fighting illegal enrichment, but doesn’t even meet the lax standards approved
in 2011 under former President Yanukovych, in the view of Anticorruption Action
Centre Head Vitaliy Shabunin. The 2011 standard required prosecutors to provide
evidence that a bribe was paid and authority was abused, while Poroshenko’s
bill requires that prosecutors present evidence that no bribe was paid and no
authority abused before addressing the illegal enrichment claims, Shabunin
said. “With such a formulation, it will be impossible to prosecute officials
for acquiring property that is not explained by their official income,” he
said.

The anticorruption centre offered a similarly critical
assessment of Tymoshenko’s proposal, which creates two stages for establishing
incidents of illegal enrichment. First a court has to rule that property was
illegally acquired, before a second investigation is conducted to secure
another ruling, he said. Moreover, the rulings can be appealed, a process that
can take many years. The bill also has legal formulations that can be widely
interpreted.

Zenon Zawada: In submitting the weaker legislation, both Poroshenko and Tymoshenko
are acting rather cynically to an issue critical not only for the Ukrainian
public, but Western authorities who are interested in stricter measures to fight
corruption, particularly among the political class. Their campaigns are very
eager to accuse each other of corruption, but not act to the necessary extent
to eliminate it from among their own party ranks. This disinterest in the
anti-corruption struggle will only help Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who isn’t capable
of submitting legislation himself but can use rhetoric to convince the public
that he’s the best candidate to address corruption, which he has been doing
rather effectively so far.