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Ukraine president signs lustration law

Ukraine president signs lustration law

10 October 2014

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed on Oct. 9 the lustration law that is aimed at removing from government positions those involved in political persecutions (particularly during the EuroMaidan), high-ranking officials in the Yanukovych administration, those found to have been engaged in corruption in recent years (though not necessarily convicted), Soviet Communist Party officials and KSG/FSB collaborators and informers. Immune from lustration are elected officials, the parliamentary human rights ombudsman, the rank and file of the Internal Affairs Ministry, Cabinet officials responsible for penal enforcement and those responsible for tax police information.

 

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk estimated in mid-September that more than 1 million state officials could be removed from their positions. Leaders of the Party of Regions said they will seek to overturn the law in the Constitutional Court. Prosecutor General of Ukraine Vitaliy Yarema said in late September the legislation violates the Ukrainian Constitution.

 

Zenon Zawada: The lustration law is a vaguely written legislative item that lacks a clear mechanism of how to conduct this process. Critics have pointed out that it fails to create an independent, specially designated state organ to pursue lustration and seems to have been drafted more for the current parliamentary election campaign rather than to be applied. It’s hard to imagine how this can be done without the involvement of an extensive frame work of competent courts and judges, which are lacking in Ukraine regardless.  Yet at the same time, civic activists are demanding some start to what promises to be a difficult and divisive process.

 

Given how fragile the Ukrainian political system will be for at least the next two years, we don’t expect lustration to go very far, which is why we think Poroshenko signed the bill. We don’t expect he will enforce it, given that he has himself appointed state officials who would otherwise be forbidden from state office based on the law. Nor will his prosecutor general, as he clearly stated. As for public pressure, we think the public will shift its attention to more pressing problems in its protests, which are widely expected by springtime. Such issues are the government’s alleged mishandling of the Donbas war, its backroom arrangements with the Russians, its ongoing corruption and its failure to conduct structural reforms. It’s our view that the public is not as considered about lower-level lustration as what’s happening at the very top.

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