NABU Auditor: No Candidte From The Parliament Yet

 

According to Vitaliy Shabunin from AntAC, three favrites among the participants on the post of auditor of NABU from the Parliament are: Yanovska, Buschenko and Goncharenko (from left to right).
 

The Parliamentary Committee on Combating Corruption did not take any decision on candidate for NABU auditor from the Parliament. Dates of interviews with the candidates are not officially scheduled.

During the Committee meeting on June 21st members of the Committee from Poroshenko’s Block once again demanded to select candidates of NABU auditor without interviews. Such approach violates procedure of the competition and cannot be justified.

For example, some of the candidates also compete for the positions of judges of the new Supreme Court and, if appointed, may not act as NABU auditors; priorities of the candidates should be clarified during interviews. However, two members of the Committee - V. Kryvokhatko from Poroshenko’s Block and Y. Tymoshenko from Narodniy Front - refused to support selection of the auditor without interviews. Still, by the moment the Committee approached the issue of appointment of interviews, there already was no quorum.

However, an extraordinary meeting of the Committee was held on June 23rd upon request of 10 members of the committee. Although the meeting did not have quorum (12 people where present, while 13 are needed for the quorum), members of the Committee demanded to vote on the pretext that 13 people signed the registration form. However, the Head of the Comittee prevented such a brutal violation of the rules of procedure.  

The Committee intends to gather on July 10th to schedule the interviews and on July 12th - to hold respective interviews. However,  the committee is facing problems with quorum. Scenarios the Poroshenko’s Block and the Narodniy Front will attempt are:

  1. to try to adopt decision on candidates for NABU auditor without  interviews;
  2. to recommend the Parliament number of candidates from the committee and to select NABU auditor by general voting of the Parliament;
  3. to have the candidates recommended not by the committee, but by heads of the fractions in case if the committee will not be able to take necessary decision.

The Poroshenko’s Block is pushing hard for NABU auditor to be appointed by the Parliament before summer vacations in order to have supposedly negative conclusion of the audit in August.

The last day when the Parliament can vote for NABU auditor under its quota will be July 13th.

For more information about candidtes, who participated at the competition for NABU auditor, please read latest Vitaly Shabunin blog post at Ukrainska Pravda.
 

NABU And SAP Expose Senior Officials In Investigation Of Illegal Amber Extraction

In this criminal investigation NABU used sophisticated undercover operations, specifically undercover agent who was acting on behalf of Arab company willing to extract amber in Ukraine.

The agent approached MP Boryslav Rozenblat (Petro Poroshenko Block)  and his associates to receive various licenses for amber extraction in Zhytomyr region.

NABU reported that the investigation was conducted with support from the FBI.

Within the investigation detectives documented 5 instances of obtaining bribes from foreign company by associates of the MP.

 

The total amount of bribes was $300 000. The bribes were used to prepare draft laws providing privileges to the foreign company, as well as to influence illegally officials from state extractive regulatory agencies, prosecution and courts with purpose to obtain proper decision and licenses for the foreign company.

On June 19 NABU and SAP detained 7 people suspected in the case, however 2 MPs documented by NABU can’t be detained and prosecuted without permission of the parliament.

On June 21 on the request of NABU and SAP Yuri Lutsenko submitted a request to the parliament to waive deputy immunity from MP Boryslav Rozenblat and MP Maksym Polyakov (Narodnyi Front).

Prosecutor General Requests the Parliament to Lift Immunity From 5 MPs

 

On June 21st the Prosecutor General Yuriy Lytsenko submitted to the Parliament requests to lift immunity of five members of the Parliament:

  • B. Rosenblat from Porohenko’s Block and M. Poliakov from Narodniy Front - case on receiving bribes for illegal amber extraction, investigated by NABU (on the photo above).
  • E. Deidey from Narodnit Front - case on illicit enrichment, investigated by NABU.
  • O. Dovgiy from the People’s Will (Volia Narody) - case on abuse of office while serving as secretary of the Kyiv City Council, investigated by NABU.
  • A.Lozovyi from Radical Party - case on failure to pay taxes, investigated by the Prosecutor’s General Office.

However, Lozoviy has a legal option of paying taxes in the amount that is incriminated to him, after which the case against him must be closed. This already took place in a case against MP G.Bobov from the Renaissance (Vidrodzennya) fraction: PGO filed a request of lifting immunity from Bobov in the case of failure to pay taxes, however, the MP payed requested amount and the case was closed. Therefore, cases on failure to pay taxes give MPs all possibilities to avoid liability and even to legalize assets.

According to the  law, all these requests must first be approved by the Parliamentary Committee of the Rules of Procedure and then - by the Parliament, which is unlikely to happen before Autumn.

Prosecutor General Announced Criminal Confiscation Of Odessa Oil Refinery

On June 19 Yuri Lutsenko informed in his facebook that Odessa oil refinery was confiscated by court in the criminal proceeding. Prosecutor General stated that the asset was a subject of crime in the criminal organized group of Sergiy Kurchenko. The court issued a decision based on a plea bargain agreement with one of members of the alleged Kurchenko organized criminal group.

It is already second big asset recovery case reported by Prosecutor General Lutsenko, which uses special confiscation tool through  the plea bargain agreements with convicted persons. The first one is on recovery of 1.5 bln of USD of alleged Yanukovych funds in bonds. The decision on the latter was not published yet. Prosecutor General office informed that they must hide the court decision to protect witnesses. TI-Ukraine publicly asked parliament to verify legal grounds of such a secret confiscation, which raises a lot of questions.  

AntAC is expecting to  see the court decision regarding recovery of Odessa oil refinery to provide expert opinion on the reported new confiscation result of Mr. Lutsenko. We do hope that at least this decision will not be secret.  

Competition For The New Supreme Court Equator: 75% Of Negative Opinions Of Integrity Council Were Overcome By The Qualification Commission

On June 22th and June 23th the High Qualification Commission of Judges continued final consideration of candidates to the Supreme Court judges, who received negative opinions from the Public Integrity Council.As of June 23th, overall result of all the plenary sessions of the Commission are as follows:   

14
candidates were disqualified based on the  negative opinions of the PIC

42
negative opinions of the PIC were overruled by the Commission

The Commission has considered half of candidates with negative opinions from the Public Integrity Council and had overruled 75% of negative opinions that were already considered.

Among candidates on whom negative opinions from the Public Integrity Council were overruled there are judges, whose decisions were considered by the European Courts of Human Rights as violating the European Convention on Human Rights and Basic Freedoms; judges who adopted unlawful decision against participants of the Revolution of Dignity; judges with unjustified assets.

Draft Law On Anticorruption Court #6011 May Be Sent For Expertise Of The Venice Commission

On June 21st the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Policy and the Judiciary adopted a decision to recommend the Speaker of the Parliament to request the Venice Commission to provide opinion on the draft law on anticorruption court #6011.

The Speaker is free to follow the recommendation of the committee or to reject it.

Should the opinion of the Venice commission be requested, this will be used by Poroshenko’s block as another pretext to postpone consideration of the draft law.  

However, Rules of Procedure of the Parliament do not prevent the draft law from being adopted in the first reading before opinion of the Venice Commission is received.

AntAC’s Suit Sgainst Security Service Of Ukraine to Disclose E-declarations: Continuation

On June 23, 2017, the second court hearing took place in the administrative suit of AntAC against the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) with the demand to disclose asset declarations of the SSU management.

On May 10, 2017, after the first hearing of the case, the court decided to consider the case in the course of so-called written proceedings. Meaning that there should not have been any public court hearings or debates prior the announcement of final decision.

However, the court summoned one more hearing on June 23 in order to give the SSU the opportunity to submit the confidential documents. AntAC’s lawyers will have a chance to study those documents, but are not allowed to disclose them to the general public.

The court also returned back to the written proceedings, no more public hearings are scheduled so far. The final decision should be announced in ten days (at the beginning of July).