President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a law that separates the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutorʼs Office into a separate independent body. Previously, he was accountable to the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office. This reorganization was one of the requirements of the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund.
The law improves the procedures for selecting prosecutors and appointing them to administrative positions in the SAPO, creates a procedure for disciplinary proceedings against prosecutors, and defines a mechanism for accountability of the prosecutorʼs office management, including performance evaluation and external audit by independent experts. In the approved version, some of Lozovoyʼs "amendments" were canceled, but amendments related to the terms of the pre-trial investigation, the appointment and conduct of the examination, the possibility of contesting the notification of suspicion, etc., were partially voted on.
The anti-corruption organization Transparency International Ukraine writes that the lawmakers did not take into account critical recommendations:
- Cancel the unconditional closing of the case by the court after the expiration of the investigation period, introduced by the Lozovoy amendments.
- Provide the SAPO with the opportunity to request extradition without the Office of the Prosecutor General.
- Give the head of the SAPO the ability to independently initiate criminal cases against peopleʼs deputies.
The Council currently has two draft laws that cancel the "Lozovoy amendments" — No. 10100 and No. 10060-2 (alternative to the approved one). That is, the draft law that was adopted today is only the first step.