(C) OpenDemocracy
This story was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



How Ukraine is fighting high-level corruption despite Russia’s war [1]

[]

Date: 2023-07

After years of botched attempts to combat corruption in Ukraine, the last 18 months have seen investigators launch an unprecedented number of high-profile anti-corruption cases, despite the problems caused by Russia’s war.

The fight against corruption and impunity from justice was a key driver of Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolution in 2014, as people rebelled against state capture. But while efforts to embed anti-corruption measures in the country’s institutions had some success in subsequent years, the public often criticised government organisations for their inaction.

Now, the state’s anti-corruption bodies are tackling wartime fraud, and also resurrecting prominent investigations and prosecutions after years in apparent limbo.

Just last month, Vsevolod Kniaziev, head of Ukraine’s Supreme Court, was detained and charged over alleged bribery. A few weeks later, a famous Kyiv judge, who had made headlines after disappearing to Moldova before being kidnapped and brought back to Ukraine, was sentenced to ten years in prison. He was first charged back in 2016.

Get the free oDR newsletter A weekly summary of our latest stories about the post-Soviet world. Sign up now

Vadym Valko, a lawyer at the Centre for Combating Corruption NGO, told openDemocracy that Ukraine is doing well to fight corruption with “fewer resources”, as prosecutors and investigators have joined the Ukrainian military.

“Show me one other country in the world that, during a full-scale war, with destroyed infrastructure, with obviously big internal problems, is not just fighting corruption – [but showing] better results than before the war,” he said.

Still, some key reforms are yet to be completed. And the fate of Ukraine’s democracy now depends on successful judicial reform and fair competition for selecting judges to join the country’s Constitutional Court.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/ukraine-anti-corruption-judicial-reform-improvements/

Published and (C) by OpenDemocracy
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/opendemocracy/