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issue a statement that implicitly warned Kyiv to back off or see further IMF money halted.
A judicial reform initiative launched last year that was backed by both the president and parliament was blocked by the 20 members of the High Council of Justice, some of whom have been charged with corruption. Corrupt judges have been kept on and little effort has been made to oust them.
“Until reforms take place, this Council operates as a law unto itself and has unchecked authority to review laws as well as to discipline, replace, and select judges in all courts. The blow was a setback to judicial reform while illustrating the need for sweeping changes,” said Diane Francis is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center in a recent article.
During summer 2020, judges have escalated their attack on NABU as well as on the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) as part of a campaign by oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky to regain control over PrivatBank, which was nationalised in 2016 after he looted it of $5.5bn.
The courts have also tried to liquidate the High Anti-Corruption Court , which is another leg of the triumvirate that also includes the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), which carries out the prosecutions in parallel to the General Prosecutor’s Office, but is also entirely independent from the government’s control. The cases that NABU and SAPO produce are head in the Anti-Corruption Court, which is also entirely independent of both the government and the rest of the legal system.
This whole independent graft-fighting system is under constant attack and Zelenskiy appears to have no interest in protecting it. As bne IntelliNews has written elsewhere c orruption is the system and Zelenskiy, like his predecessor Poroshenko, has show little interest in attacking the issue.
There was more bad news for reformers in early September when the Kyiv Administrative District Court ordered PrivatBank to pay $350mn to two associates of Kolomoisky. PrivatBank lawyers said the bank will appeal the decision.
“The seriousness of this PrivatBank ruling cannot be overstated. In a social media post, Ukrainian Justice Minister Denis Malyuska branded it “one of the biggest judicial transgressions in Ukrainian history”,” said Francis.
Meanwhile, former Finance Minister Alexander Danilyuk called the decision “the beginning of the collapse of the results of the nationalization of PrivatBank” and warned that if lawsuits are not stopped, they could cost Ukraine’s government billions of dollars.
“These setbacks highlight the need for dramatic personnel changes within the court system. However, efforts to purge the Ukrainian legal system have repeatedly been undermined as jurists close ranks. In 2019 and 2020, NABU charged a number of judges with corruption and obstruction of justice, but have been unable to get a court to hear the case. Likewise, the Prosecutor General’s Office has tried but failed,” says Francis. “President Zelenskyy must take on the country’s legal cabal. Judicial reform legislation must be re-introduced and the support of the IMF, the West, donors, and the public must be elicited. The courts cannot continue to veto reforms.”
8 UKRAINE Country Report October 2020 www.intellinews.com
