Mass media report that the issues discussed during the meetings concerned the terrorist attacks in Boston and cooperation between Ukraine and the United States in combating cybercrime. However, it is possible that one more issue was on the agenda, which was not covered in the media.
One of the key areas in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation is engaged is fighting corruption at all levels. Given the fact that the US Ambassador to Ukraine John Tefft has repeatedly stressed the high level of corruption in Ukraine, which prevents American companies from working here, it would be surprising if Muller did not raise this issue at a meeting with the president of Ukraine. Furthermore, reliable sources informed The Day that currently a case, related to one of the biggest scandals in Ukraine dealing with money laundering, is considered by the US authorized institutions.
Interestingly, shortly before this meeting another two leading American lawyers, who specialize in combating money laundering in the United States, came to Ukraine. On June 4 they delivered a lecture for law students of the key universities of Kyiv on the experience of fighting corruption in America and how it can be used in Ukraine.
An effective tool for public access to government is the “open week,” which in America is called Sunshine week. During this time people who have applied to participate in the event can find information about their rights in all government agencies. For the most part, it is about public access to information on the constitutional rights of citizens. Each participant of the Sunshine week can see the decisions made by officials and the amount of money spent on their initiatives. “Although people have access to this information at all times,” stressed the representative of the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association Benjamin Griffith. “The problem is that people often don’t know where and how they can obtain it. During this week they easily overcome this barrier of the lack of knowledge.”
In several states, particularly in Pennsylvania and Texas, there is a practice of making full records of local council hearings (Open records). Citizens can get stenography, if they make a request through the state’s official website. Public meetings before adoption of laws are also common in the United States (the so-called Open Meetings Law). Community chooses representatives to participate in such meetings.
Theoretically, similar events take place in Ukraine. However, in practice, people do not know about the discussions of laws and official decisions. To overcome lobbyism in local government bodies, correspondence between officials was made open for public in some American states.
However, there are areas where Ukraine is a more open country than the US. For example, politicians in Ukraine can’t hide the information about their education, whereas in the US politicians can keep it a secret. When journalists asked Barack Obama to show his grade record from the university, he refused. Of course, this caused a storm of negative discussions in the society. Despite this fact, the president of the United States has a constitutional right that allows him to keep his grade records as private information under the law of the country.
The Day asked Benjamin Griffith about what aspect in fighting corruption he would identify as the most important. “It is the investigations in the media,” he replied. “They should become the voice that would explain the citizens their rights and would scream about illegal decisions made by the government.”
Griffith believes that the fact that investigative journalism is rapidly developing in Ukraine is great, even despite the fact that they often don’t have the desired result when money are returned and the guilty are punished. “It’s an unfortunate situation and our country went through it too at one point. In the 1960s, there was a terrible case of corruption in Mississippi, which involved the high-ranked officials. An African-American child, African-American college students, and a lawyer, who defended the rights of African-Americans, were killed there. Many court hearings in such cases ended with the release of the guilty. We waited for 35 years to review those cases. But in the end we achieved our goal. I wonder why people in Ukraine put up with corruption. Nothing will change, unless you stand up and say that it does not suit you, everything will remain the way it is today,” said the lawyer.
Well, it took 35 years for the state of Tennessee to fight the corruption. Perhaps, given the fact that we now live in an era of the Internet and people can access information more easily, Ukraine has a chance to make this step much faster.
