'After the Verkhovna Rada gave initial approval to creating an anti-corruption court on March 1, President Petro Poroshenko’s longstanding resistance to such a body surfaced again.'
- Oleg Sukhov,
Poroshenko puts up more resistance to independent anti-corruption court, March 7, 2018
'..Poroshenko is obstructing justice and ensuring that prosecutors like Yuriy Lutsenko, his political servant who commands 15,000 useless or corrupt subordinates, keep Ukrainian’s kleptocratic oligarchy in place.''President Petro Poroshenko keeps
inventing ruses to prevent the creation of an independent anti-corruption court with respected judges who would, at long last, start delivering justice to this long-suffering nation.
His latest line of attack — tested during yet another interview with yet another foreign-based journalist (Neil Buckley of the Financial Times) who doesn’t know what’s going on in Ukraine — is that Western donors cannot dictate the composition of the court because that would be an unconstitutional infringement on Ukrainian sovereignty. Easy problem to solve: Let the Western experts advise, and Ukrainians choose.
But that’s not what’s really happening. What’s really happening is that Poroshenko wants to keep control of the judicial system, like all presidents before him. That’s why his loyal judicial commission ignored the objections of the all-Ukrainian Public Integrity Council, an advisory watchdog, who found 27 of the 115 “new” Supreme Court justices too corrupt to serve. Poroshenko doesn’t need to wait for an anti-corruption court for the nation to start prosecuting corruption, anyway. Criminal charges could be easily filed against billionaire oligarch Igor Kolomoisky or dozens of others who have allegedly fleeced this nation of billions of dollars.
There is only reason why no one of consequence has been convicted of corruption: Poroshenko is obstructing justice and ensuring that prosecutors like Yuriy Lutsenko, his political servant who commands 15,000 useless or corrupt subordinates, keep Ukrainian’s kleptocratic oligarchy in place.
“You have to ask why Poroshenko is stalling. What has he got to hide?” asked long-time Ukraine analyst Timothy Ash.
The answer: Plenty.'
- Kyiv Post,
Poroshenko is afraid, March 8, 2018
Context(Ukraine) - '..a special, independent anticorruption court would come in handy .. formed by year's end.' March 7, 2017