Nuland calls for re-inventing Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine

The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine must be reinvented “as an institution that serves the citizens of Ukraine, rather than ripping them off,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland in her Oct. 8 testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “That means it must investigate and successfully prosecute corruption and asset recovery cases, including locking up dirty personnel in the Prosecutor General’s Office itself.”

In addition, the newly created Inspector General’s Office within Ukraine’s prosecution must be able to work independently and effectively, without political or judicial interference, she said. The Ukrainian government must appoint the National Anti-Corruption bureau’s anti-corruption prosecutor as soon as possible in order to start investigating crimes, she said. With U.S., EU and U.K. assistance, new local prosecutors are being hired, old ones are being tested and retrained, and all will now submit to periodic performance evaluations to root out corruption and malfeasance, she said.

Recall, in his Sept. 24 remarks to the Odesa Financial Forum, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt singled out the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine and its failure to fight domestic corruption as the biggest obstacle to improving the business climate and building a new model of government. “Rather than supporting Ukraine’s reforms and working to root out corruption, corrupt actors within the Prosecutor General’s Office are marking things worse by openly and aggressively undermining reform,” Pyatt said, accusing them of regularly hindering efforts to investigate and prosecute corrupt officials and intimidating and obstructing those working honestly on reform initiatives.

Zenon Zawada: Although Pyatt said in his remarks that the corrupt prosecution officials are acting “in defiance of Ukraine’s leaders,” it’s widely accepted that there is consensus and tacit approval among them. These leaders (Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk) have demonstrated they’re unwilling to conduct the reforms that are needed. Even examining the anti-corruption fight based on political game theory, it’s irrational for those who benefit from a corrupt system to attempt to reform it to their disadvantage. For example, amid all their ongoing corruption, Ukrainian officials continue to receive billions of dollars in aid from the West.

Indeed given the inertia of the post-Soviet bureaucracy and counterproductive behavioral norms that were inherited, no politician will be able to conduct its necessary reforms, particularly in the sphere of criminal prosecution, without such active support from high-ranking Western officials, such as Pyatt and Nuland. In our view, it’s their constant involvement, and constructive criticism, that provides the only hope of Ukraine adopting Western institutions and values in governance. So the investment community welcomes the active involvement of high-ranking U.S. officials and hopes to see them continue.