Ukraine finally has its anti-corruption prosecutor. On December 1, President Petro Poroshenko and Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin presented Nazar Kholodnytsky as the head of the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecution Office. The appointment was preceded by prolonged bitter battles, all because of a direct connection existing between the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecution Office and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
For his part, director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau Artem Sytnyk stated following Kholodnytsky’s appointment that it was a long-awaited, prolonged process. “It is important to see now that winning candidates for other administrative positions in the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecution Office are determined and appointed as soon as possible, thus enabling the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor to start working effectively,” he said.
Viktor SHYSHKIN, member, contest commission; judge, Constitutional Court (2006-15):
“I would not like to comment on the appointment of the head of the Specialized Anticorruption Prosecution Office. The very process (contest) was highly democratic and law-abiding. Everybody could watch it. The result is a different matter and sphere. I could not know whom Shokin would choose – this was on his conscience, but we put up worthy candidates. I said publicly that I was supporting the cyborg [Maksym Hryshchuk. – Ed.]. The very fact that he scored the maximum number, 11, of the rating votes and most of the final votes, 9, means that there can be positive changes in the system but it is the leaders who make decisions. They did not appoint the cyborg. The current leadership holds a place for Maidan activists, volunteers, and cyborgs in jail, not at a prosecution office.”
Yehor SOBOLIEV, Member of Parliament; chairman, Parliamentary Committee for the Prevention of Corruption (facebook.com):
“As chairman of a parliamentary committee, I closely watched the elections of the first anticorruption prosecutor.
“As a politician, I refrained from appraising the candidates in public. I never made such appraisals unless the electors asked me to do so.
“Now that the anticorruption prosecutor has already begun to work, I can express my own viewpoint – they did not elect the best one. There was really an open competition, but most of the electors lacked either knowledge or a principled stand.
“Anyway, the prosecutor has been elected.
“I wish Nazar Kholodnytsky and Artem Sytnyk to show the results the entire society is expecting.
“Ukraine needs that hundreds of corrupt top officials be arrested.
“We in parliament have passed all the necessary laws – from decent salaries for anticorruption detectives and prosecutors to the right to detain, before a court ruling, the top officials who are going to flee.”
