Zelenskyy urged to repeal law restricting anti-corruption institutions

The business community, civil society organisations and think tanks have appealed to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) to repeal a law that will end the independence of Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions.

Source: a statement by the CEO Club Ukraine

Details: In a statement, the CEO Club Ukraine has noted that the controversial bill No. 12414, which has been passed by the Verkhovna Rada, destroys the independence of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies, turning them into subdivisions of the unreformed and politically dependent prosecutor's office, as well as significantly limiting the effectiveness of these bodies, depriving them of the ability to maintain the confidentiality of investigations.

"In essence, this implies the destruction of one of the key factors that keep the door to the European Union open for Ukraine and ensure the trust and support of our European partners, which is vital in times of war," the statement said.

Among other things, the CEO Club Ukraine noted that this creates grounds for rolling back existing achievements in terms of European integration and greatly increases the financial risks for Ukraine.

"Knowing the position of our European partners, we regard the current events as a disruption of the path towards European integration that has been paid for not only by the hundreds of lives of the Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred, but also the many thousands of lives of the heroes of the ATO and later the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the full-scale war," the statement said. [The ATO or Anti-Terrorist Operation is a term used from 2014 to 2018 to identify combat actions in parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts against Russian military forces and pro-Russian separatists – ed.]

The statement continued: "Together with the disruption of the reboot of the Economic Security Bureau and the High Qualification Commission of Judges, and the application of politically motivated selective justice to civil society activists, military personnel, journalists, etc., this creates a feeling of returning to 2013, when Ukraine's geopolitical and civilisational choice had not yet been made."

The full list of signatories is available here.

Background: On 22 July, the Verkhovna Rada voted for the controversial bill No. 12414, which limits the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO). President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the law despite appeals from activists, concern from the European Union, and mass protests in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, and Odesa.

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