In Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, and Odessa, hundreds of people took to the streets to protest against Bill No. 12414, which amends and restricts the work of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutorʼs Office (SAP).
In the capital, protesters gathered near the Ivan Franko National Theater. They hold banners and shout: “Veto the Law”. In Lviv, people protest on Svobody Avenue. In Odesa, they call on the president not to sign the bill, chanting: “Letʼs protect democratic institutions”. In Dnipro, people stand with banners: “Independence of NABU and SAP”, “No to bill No. 12414”.
Meanwhile, bill No. 12414 has stopped appearing on the Verkhovna Rada website. It states that "the resource you are looking for may have been deleted, its name has been changed, or it is temporarily unavailable".
What does the bill provide for?
The document discusses changes to the Criminal Code. Among other things, the Prosecutor General will be given 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 the SAP prosecutor to other prosecutors;
- provide the NABU detectives with mandatory written instructions;
- independently close cases on suspicion of top 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.
NABU and SAP emphasized that if the document is adopted, 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.
What preceded
On July 21, law enforcement officers conducted mass searches at NABU and SAP. In particular, they detained one of the heads of the Bureauʼs interregional detective departments Ruslan Maghamedrasulov. According to the investigation, the official was in close contact with the fugitive MP from the banned “OPZZh” party Fedir Khrystenko (he was reported suspected of treason), who is connected to the Russian special services.
NABU reported almost 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, the Bureau says that back in 2023, the special service was informed about a possible mole, but at that time SBU did not reveal the involvement of the bureau employee in espionage.
NABU and SAP also accused the Security Service of potentially revealing confidential information about the investigation during investigative actions. SBU called these statements manipulations.
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