Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers has announced that it had prepared a transitional bill on the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine for the Verkhovna Rada to pass it. Political scientist Alex Golobuckij has analyzed the bill and said that it not only fails to solve the problem of the unconstitutionality of the appointment of the NABU director, but also creates even greater legal chaos.
Golobuckij writes about this on the Obozrevatel portal.
"They declare that this is how they comply with the decision of the Constitutional Court on the unconstitutionality of Sytnyk's appointment. But what the Cabinet of Ministers proposes does not regulate the problem of unconstitutionality in any way, but instead gives Sytnyk immunity for the next two years," the political scientist says.
Golobuckij notes that "instead of solving the problem, to the delight of the NABU directors, they are intensifying it even more. The only benefit, and even that dubious one, from this bill is for Zelensky, who was removed from political responsibility for non-constitutional Sytnyk and was shifted onto the Verkhovna Rada. But this created an even greater problem of legitimacy, not only of a specific, unconstitutionally appointed director of NABU, but of the entire bureau." He draws attention to the fact that if one removes the mentioning from the law that the president participates in the creation of NABU and dismisses its head, this will not be a solution to the issue, but its aggravation. The very next day after the adoption of the amendments to the law, 45 lawmakers will send another submission to the Constitutional Court, which will decide that NABU was created in an unconstitutional way, because the new law will not specify the procedure for its creation.
"But who cares if the new bill was written for the sake of one main benefit, i.e. not only keep NABU's director in office but let Artem Sytnyk, with all his problems with the law, enjoy immunity," Golobuckij writes. "The new law does not regulate the issue of responsibility of NABU's director for committing corruption (let me remind you that Sytnyk was recognized by the court as a corrupt official and entered in NAPC's register of corrupt officials), as causes for the dismissal of NABU's director were left unchanged. Is NABU's director a corrupt person? No problem. You can fire him if he does not pay alimony. If he is involved in corruption – this is the precisely type of director we need. Or the fact that Sytnyk has included inaccurate data in the assets declaration, and this is what NABU is checking in its suspects – most of the cases are about this. For NABU's director himself it is not a problem – the law blesses him with this. There will be a problem, if he does not file a declaration with inaccurate data on time. If on time – it is well done. And most importantly, for the sake of which this law was written - guarantees of personal inviolability for one specific person – Artem Sytnyk, who is guaranteed to remain in office for the next two years if the bill by Shabunin, sorry, Malyuska, is passed."
It must be mentioned that the Constitutional Court recognized the appointment of Artem Sytnyk as Director of the National Anti-corruption Bureau unconstitutional by its decision of August 28, 2020. Artem Sytnyk himself refused to resign. In turn, Parliament Speaker Dmytro Razumkov stated that in order to resolve the situation with the director of NABU, Artem Sytnyk, it is necessary to amend the legislation.
