It has been many years since Ukraine started attempting to improve both its scores within international ratings and overall assessments of international institutions such as GRECO. At the same time, as Drago Kos, former Head of GRECO, who partook in discussions regarding the Concept, the last 15 years of his travels to Ukraine have been a disappointment, since all that could be seen were only incremental and un-systemic changes or their overall absence. Yet, according to him, the country right now is at that stage of its development where only rapid, decisive, and well-considered actions to curb corruption may satisfy the public trust.

 

Ruslan Ryaboshapka, Deputy Minister of Justice and former Government Agent for Anticorruption Policy, reconfirmed the assessment made by the international expert. Presenting the proposed concept of the nation-wide system of corruption prevention, he noted that a group of civic experts with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation have been able to produce in a short time-span a holistic vision of how Ukraine may realistically combat corruption, including the proposed modus operandi and institutional setups. At the same time, the Ministry of Justice has voiced its readiness to support the civic experts in order to shape the updated concept into a draft law, which will be then channeled to the Parliament. The "Concept of reforming corruption prevention systems in Ukraine" is a compact and detailed document, which establishes the bedrock principles for work of the future corruption prevention systems in the country, including the establishment of the National Commission for Corruption Prevention.

 

The experts have envisioned establishment of a collegial body which, in accordance to the selected "Slovenian model" will be chaired by five commissioners and will have the required high level of independence from undue influence to advance work in the most urgent spheres of corruption prevention. Amongst those functions – establishment and control over the execution of the national anticorruption strategy, conducting systemic research in order to improve state policy, tracking compliance with the norms and rules of ethical behavior, cooperation with whistleblowers, checking assets declarations, as well as coordination of sectoral and departmental anticorruption programmes, plans and strategies. Apart from that, the Commission is to be entitled with the right to initiate dismissal of officials, who have not taken the prescribed steps to prevent corruption, as well as to launch internal investigations.

 

While discussing the details of the Concept, the former Secretary of the Anticorruption Commission of Bulgaria, UNDP Expert, Constantine Palicarsky, noted that the presented vision aligns with all the basic international standards and requirements regarding preventive anticorruption bodies, and that the Concept was lacking merely a few substantial issues. Amongst other things, he focused on the importance of augmenting the Commission's role in preventing corruption vis-à-vis the business community, necessity of closer coordination in the area of corruption prevention with other state bodies, ministries and agencies, and recommended to concentrate on high-level conflict of interest and possibility of direct sanctioning for minor corruption misdemeanors or irregularities without having to deal with courts.

 

As a result of the discussion, the civic experts and representatives of the Ministry of Justice agreed on the further steps to update the existing Concept and create a draft law (based on this document) to be able to submit it to Parliament at the beginning of May.

 

At the same time, production of the Concept is far from being the only initiative on the corruption prevention frontier right now. The Parliamentary committees are currently considering a draft law "On Establishment of a National Bureau of Anticorruption Investigations", which will establish a "corruption-repressive" body to investigate corruption offences at all levels of government, and will be an effective deterrent and prosecutor for potential crime in this area. Apart from that, proactive discussions are ongoing as to the creation of a renewed national anticorruption strategy, reform of the access to information architecture (including budgeting information), introduction of tougher frameworks regarding money laundering, introducing change as to transparency of political party financing, and other crucial areas.