The Verkhovna Rada today, July 22, wants to consider a draft law that could limit the powers of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutorʼs Office (SAP).
This was reported by an MP from “Voice” Yaroslav Zheleznyak, an MP from “Servant of the People” Anastasia Radina, and the human rights organization Transparency International Ukraine.
This is Bill No. 12414 on amendments to the Criminal Code. They want to include amendments that will give the Prosecutor General the following powers:
- to take cases from NABU and entrust the investigation to other bodies;
- be the de facto head of SAP and delegate the powers of SAP prosecutor to other prosecutors;
- provide the NABU detectives with mandatory written instructions;
- independently close cases on suspicion of high-ranking officials.
Amendments are also envisaged that will limit the activities of SAP, namely:
- The SAP prosecutors will not be able to determine NABUʼs jurisdiction in certain cases;
- the head of SAP will not be able to resolve disputes about the subjectivity of investigation in cases that NABU can investigate;
- The head of SAP will not have the authority to amend appeals and cassation complaints filed by the SAP prosecutors.
The full document with the proposed amendments was published by anti-corruption activist Vitaliy Shabunin.
Transparency International Ukraine believes that these proposals pose a direct threat to the independence of NABU and urged deputies not to support them.
UPD at 11:50 AM. NABU and SAP responded to the proposed amendments to the draft law.
In a joint statement, the departments emphasized that if the document is approved, the head of SAP will become a nominal figure, and NABU will lose its independence and turn into a division of the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office.
"Ukraineʼs anti-corruption infrastructure, built since 2015, will be destroyed. We call on the peopleʼs representatives to abstain from voting, which could finally destroy the independence of the anti-corruption system in Ukraine," the message says.
What preceded
On July 21, law enforcement officers conducted mass searches at the NABU and SAP. In particular, they detained one of the heads of the interregional departments of the NABU detectives Ruslan Maghamedrasulov. According to the investigation, the official was in close contact with the fugitive MP from the banned “OPZZh” party Fedor Khrystenko ( he was reported suspected of treason), who is connected to the Russian special services.
NABU reported about 70 searches involving 15 of its employees. They stated that most of them were due to the employeesʼ involvement in a traffic accident (three employees were later reported as suspicious for this ).
SBU also said that it had exposed a mole in the NABU who was spying for the FSB. At the same time, NABU says that back in 2023, they informed the special service about a possible mole, but at that time the SBU did not reveal the involvement of the bureau employee in espionage.
NABU and SAP also accused SBU of revealing confidential information about the investigation during investigative actions. SBU called these statements manipulations.
And on July 22, SBU declared the discovery of new leaks of secret data in NABU — during searches at Khrystenkoʼs house, confidential NABU documents were found.
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