When Ukrainian civil society and the nation’s Western friends admonish the government to establish rule of law and overhaul a corrupt and distrusted judiciary, what do they get in response?
Judging from this week’s catastrophic developments, only disdain and disrespect.
This poor showing by President Volodymyr Zelensky is not going to get him an audience with U. S. President Joe Biden anytime soon, and maybe not even a phone call. And it’s certainly going to keep Western allies at a distance.
What happened that was so bad? Investigations into one of Ukraine’s most corrupt courts, led by Pavlo Vovk, got killed along with another one into alleged corruption by a top presidential aide.
On March 17, the High Anti-Corruption Court refused to extend a corruption investigation against Vovk, who has come to epitomize judicial lawlessness in Ukraine. Under a ridiculous law that gives courts such arbitrary powers, prosecutors have to either close the case or send it to trial within five days.
A law enforcement source told the Kyiv Post that it will not be sent to trial by that deadline, which means that the case will be buried for good.
In February, Kyiv’s Shevchenko District Court also refused to extend the bribery case against President Volodymyr Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff Oleh Tatarov despite the fact that it has no such jurisdiction. The case was not sent to trial within five days, and now it is officially dead.
Zelensky’s loyal Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova has proven to be both ineffective and obstructionist during her year in office.
Venediktova has done her best to save Tatarov and Vovk from prosecution. Zelensky has done nothing to distance himself from this odious duo. The judiciary’s governing body — the High Council of Justice — helped Vovk by refusing to suspend him and pressuring the judge who considered the case.
Members of the High Council of Justice are implicated in Vovk’s alleged corruption schemes, according to tapes published by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine.
Until Tatarov and Vovk are fired and prosecuted, Zelensky’s talk about de-oligarchization and his moves against pro-Kremlin lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk and billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky will look as empty publicity stunts, not genuine anti-corruption efforts.
To add insult to injury, the Supreme Court on March 17 reinstated Oksana Tsarevych as a judge at Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court. Tsarevych used forged and false documents to strip innocent protesters of drivers’ licenses during the 2013–2014 EuroMaidan Revolution, which ousted ex-President Viktor Yanukovych.
She became the symbol of injustice and lawlessness. Her reinstatement is more proof of faltering judicial reform in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet tried on March 15 to help corrupt judges and officials by submitting a new bill to fire Artem Sytnyk, head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, or NABU, before his authority expires in 2022. The bill also allows Zelensky to control the selection of a new NABU chief.
Zelensky and his Cabinet are doing their best to undermine Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions and cooperation with Western partners.
For the International Monetary Fund, the NABU’s independence and judicial reform are crucial conditions for further lending. So far, Ukraine is failing both tests miserably.
The corrupt counter-revolution against the democratic EuroMaidan values, which started under ex-President Petro Poroshenko, is accelerating under Zelensky to Ukraine’s detriment.
