A chance for prosecutors: from reforms to action
OPINION
Yuriy Doroshenko, lawyer, journalist
In recent years, Ukraine has developed a strange tradition of scolding the prosecutor’s office. For a cause, or just for fun. It is a convenient lightning rod for other branches of government. The main coordinating body in the law enforcement system has been turned into a whipping boy and has become a springboard for all sorts of reform experiments, mostly initiated from outside our country.
We are often offered “European standards of prosecution” that have nothing to do with the principles by which prosecutors in European countries live… No other body in our country has experienced such cataclysms. The question is, how can we demand results from prosecutors who are wiping their feet on the floor of society and, to some extent, even the state?
The Day of Prosecutors of Ukraine is probably the only day of the year when you can ask the public for mercy to prosecutors, to look at the situation not only through the black glasses of all-encompassing criticism: “all prosecutors are corrupt”, “all prosecutors are rich”, “prosecutors do not fight”, and so on.
Even prosecutors sometimes need a lawyer who, for the sake of objectivity, will express a point of view different from the one that has been manipulatively established in society.
First of all, it should be recalled that many prosecutors have been volunteering for the frontline since 2014 and have been defending our country against the Russian aggressor. Moreover, unfortunately, some of them have already been killed. The wall of remembrance at the Prosecutor General’s Office is a testament to this. And on the day of the professional prosecutor’s holiday, we are obliged to remember them and bow to people of duty and honor.
By the way, the systematic work on collecting information about the fallen prosecutors during the Russian-Ukrainian war began under the current Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, who, at a young age, as a military prosecutor, did not betray his oath and returned to the mainland of Ukraine from the occupied Crimea, documented the crimes of Russian aggressors there and then was in the ATO zone in Donbas.
These facts alone show that at least some prosecutors are worthy of respect and honor.
In general, it is hard to disagree that the prosecutor’s office has been in a systemic and deep crisis for years. But it should be noted that this is not only a prosecutorial disease. the “old” and newly created law enforcement agencies are in a state of search for their place and forms of work. For years, communication with the public has been catastrophically lacking, and there is a lack of professional information about the real situation.
The position of Prosecutor General is often put up for political bidding, and is targeted by those who are dissatisfied (including, of course, some corrupt officials and criminals), which is why none of the heads of the prosecutor’s office has served their legal term.
Ruslan Kravchenko, the youngest Prosecutor General in the history of Ukraine, 34, is not to be envied – he came to the ruins of the system. First, it was hit by a tornado of legislative changes that significantly reduced powers and functions (by the way, few people know that they were initiated by the notorious Andriy Portnov and Viktor Pshonka during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych), then there was a revolution of mindless lustration, and then came a bacchanal of numerous reforms and re-certifications, which, due to their ill-conceived and unsystematic nature, bled the already frail organism of the system.
Kravchenko has a significant advantage: he is the first head of the prosecutor’s office in almost a decade, after Viktor Shokin, who is a career, professional prosecutor and knows the situation from the inside. At the same time, he is not associated with old clans. Recently, all sorts of people have been put at the helm of the prosecutor’s office: electrical engineers, teachers, peripheral lawyers, people without any specialization with or without law degrees.
We still think that in his relatively short tenure, Kravchenko’s consistency and energy give us hope that the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office will emerge from the steep slope into which it has been driven for years.
Having been in office since June of this year, Ruslan Kravchenko has already managed to restart the entire system and make it more efficient. For example, he has obliged the heads of regional and district prosecutor’s offices to go to court in high-profile cases, so that they are forced to prove their professionalism every time, rather than being purely office functionaries.
Under his leadership, recruitment for positions in district prosecutor’s offices was announced, and almost as many vacancies were opened as during the tenures of Iryna Venediktova and Andriy Kostin combined. This made it possible to inject new blood into the system, intensify work, and ensure the arrival of young professional staff.
Under Ruslan Kravchenko’s tenure, the Prosecutor General stopped substituting the work of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as his predecessors did, abusing official “tourism” and dreaming of a diplomatic career. He is constantly in Ukraine and travels abroad only for truly justified reasons of national importance.
The current Prosecutor General is uncompromising in his response to corruption in the prosecution service. An example is prosecutors with fake disabilities. Thus, at his suggestion, 74 prosecutors with the status of disabled were dismissed after a comprehensive inspection by the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors of Ukraine, and another 66 were removed from administrative positions. Surprisingly, few people report on this.
Among the priorities of the prosecutor’s office headed by Kravchenko are cases of violence against minors (in particular, sexual crimes against minors are under special control). In other words, the prosecutor’s office pays attention to those categories that cannot defend themselves, primarily children.
Ruslan Kravchenko was personally involved in supporting the public prosecution in the case of the murder of a minor by an employee of the State Protection Department in the capital’s funicular.
From the first days of his appointment, Kravchenko stood up to protect business from law enforcement arbitrariness. He initiated an audit of economic crime proceedings. Within a month of taking office, the Prosecutor General reported that 20 percent of the proceedings against businesses that were far-fetched and had no judicial prospects had been closed. In total, 8,000 cases out of 23,000 audited have already been closed. This has significantly reduced the pressure on business.
Not everything has been done yet to clean up the prosecutors’ Augean stables, because there is very little time and very unfavorable conditions, but we can already talk about certain positive trends. The prosecutor’s office has not yet emerged from the turbulence zone, but at least we can see the prospects. If Ukrainians want law and order and legality to prevail in our country, and if they want to fight corruption effectively (not just in the media), they must support the formation of a strong, professional, independent from politicians and respected by society prosecutor’s office, as it is in Europe and the United States. And Prosecutors’ Day is a good occasion to think about this.
