Page 50 - BNE_magazine_10_2020

50 I Eastern Europe bne October 2020
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's appointee as General Prosecutor, Iryna Venedyktova, seems more interested in pursuing a political agenda than cleaning up Ukraine’s venal judicial system.
Ukraine’s partners worried about deteriorating commitment of Zelenskiy administration
to judicial reform
Ukraine needs the rule of law!” tweeted Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist and a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Poroshenko had to defend himself in court on July 1 against abuse of office charges that nearly saw him jailed. The ex-president failed to show up at the State Bureau of Investigations and walked out of court after the charges were dropped.
In the most recent scandal more than 20 Western-sponsored civil society organisations signed a September 11 statement calling on Venedyktova to dismiss her recently appointed deputy, Maksym Yakubovskiy, as announced by the ZMINA centre for Human Rights.
“Yakubovskiy needs to be dismissed in order to ensure the independence of the departments in the Prosecutor General’s Office that he has been appointed to lead,” the statement said. “These are the departments to conduct EuroMaidan- related investigations, to combat the use of torture and to prosecute military crimes.” The statement also called for Venedyktova to voice public support
for criminal cases involving the EuroMaidan crimes.
Venedyktova appointed Yakubovskiy as her deputy on September 10, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced that day. In 2011-2013, Yakubovskiy served as an expert of criminal law for the Constitutional State Independent Ukrainian centre for Legal Initiatives and Examinations, which is sponsored by Viktor Medvedchuk, widely recognised as Putin’s right-hand man in Ukraine. “The centre’s director is Vasyl Nimchenko, who is an MP with
Ben Aris in Berlin
Ukraine’s partners are worried about the deteriorating commitment of the Zelenskiy administration to the rule of law and judicial reform and the increasingly politically motivated actions of the president's recently appointed General Prosecutor, Iryna Venedyktova.
“In most countries, judges take on the mafia,” writes Roman Olearchyk, The Financial Times' veteran correspondent in Ukraine. “In Kyiv’s district administrative court, some of the justices are the mafia, say anti- corruption investigators.”
Venedyktova was a controversial hire and replaced the widely respected Ruslan Riaboshapka, who was dubbed “Ukraine’s first ever honest general prosecutor.” Venedyktova
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is widely seen as loyal to Zelenskiy and among her first moves was
the launching of an abuse of office investigation into former president Petro Poroshenko that is widely seen as politically motivated.
“Zelenskiy’s handpicked Prosecutor General Iryna Venedyktova discredits herself completely. She has now opened
“In most countries, judges take on the mafia. In Kyiv’s district administrative court, some ofthe justices are the mafia”
39 cases against Poroshenko because Zelenskiy hates him, rather than going after Ukraine's real criminals.
the pro-Russian Opposition Platform For Life Party, which was co-founded by Medvedchuk (also an MP). Among the