Who has been cleared for appointment to the HACC so far

The following received HCJ nominations for appointment as HACC judges:

1. Lesia Skreklia
2. Marta-Mariia Yatsynina 
3. Oleh Khamkhodera 
4. Viktor Antypenko
5. Yevhen Didenko 
6. Mykola Pika 
7. Vitalii Koriahin 
8. Vladyslav Kukhta 
9. Iryna Teslenko 
10. Oksana Hutsal 
11. Oleksandr Dudchenko 

As judges of the HACC Appeals Chamber:

1. Mykola Rubashchenko
2. Inna Smal 
3. Olena Tanasevych 
4. Ihor Chaikin 
5. Nataliia Doroshenko 

Interviews with three more candidates remain unfinished. The review of Denys Kovalenko and of sitting HACC judges Natalia Movchan and Kateryna Sikora was put off.

What the HCJ asked candidates

At the interviews, which began on July 2, HCJ members examined not only the candidates’ professional experience but also circumstances capable of affecting their integrity, independence, and competence. Most questions concerned facts already examined by the Public Council of International Experts at special joint sessions.

A separate block of questions dealt with motivation for entering the competition and practical readiness. Candidates with mainly academic or teaching backgrounds were asked how they would compensate for the lack of judicial or advocacy practice. Sitting judges were asked to explain why they wanted to move to the HACC, to describe their experience hearing complex criminal cases and their organization of work with court staff, and to confirm their readiness to work under considerable public and media pressure.

The HCJ also examined past judgments and the limits of judicial discretion in detail. Discussion touched on a self-recusal in a high-profile criminal proceeding, a detention ruling in which the ECHR found a violation, failure to impose the mandatory driving ban in drunk-driving cases, and errors in resolving disputes over children’s place of residence.

Integrity and lifestyle drew just as many questions. Candidates were asked about trips to Russia after the aggression began in 2014, discrepancies in border-crossing records, the purchase and sale of vehicles, declaration of former spouses’ assets, disciplinary complaints, and the return of overpaid military remuneration.

In some cases the HCJ probed possible conflicts of interest and the use of official position for personal ends: service as an election agent for a parliamentary candidate, searches for information about oneself and one’s relatives in the register of court decisions, and the alleged drafting of a judgment for another judge.

For most candidates, none of this stood in the way of a nomination to the HACC or its Appeals Chamber.

Why some candidates were put off

The HCJ announced a recess in the review of HACC judge Natalia Movchan, who is applying to the Appeals Chamber. Her one-day trip to Russia in 2016 raised numerous questions, as did the possible authorship of a draft ruling that ended up with another judge, a report of alleged interference with her email, and the consequences of her move to the appellate instance for unfinished cases.

A recess with no date set was also announced for Kateryna Sikora’s candidacy for the HACC Appeals Chamber. The review addressed the results of the NACP’s full audit of her first declaration, the failure to state the value of her former husband’s assets, a criminal proceeding closed by the SBI, and the circumstances of her divorce and the determination of her child’s place of residence. 

The HCJ decided to look further into these circumstances for both candidates for HACC Appeals Chamber judgeships.

The review of Mykola Rubashchenko and Denys Kovalenko had earlier been moved from July 7 to July 14. Rubashchenko received his nomination for appointment as a HACC Appeals Chamber judge today, while Kovalenko’s review was again put off.

What comes next

Once it has finished reviewing all candidacies, the HCJ is to submit nominations to the President for those competition winners against whom no disqualifying circumstances have been established. The President then issues the corresponding decrees, and candidates who have not previously held judicial office take the oath.

Interviews with two more candidates — sitting first-instance HACC judges Natalia Movchan and Kateryna Sikora — are unfinished, as the HCJ announced a recess in both. We expect the HCJ to act transparently and not to drag out its review without sufficient grounds, so that HACC judges gain competent and honest colleagues. 

Three other candidates — Yuliia Retynska, Tetiana Troian, and Olha Pevna — are awaiting HQCJ recommendations to fill vacancies that may open at the first-instance HACC as sitting judges move up to the appellate level.

How the sale of seized assets was previously regulated

Before July 1 of this year, the sale of seized assets was governed not by a single act but by several government resolutions at once. A significant update to the process took place in November 2023, when auctions became possible on the Prozorro.Sale marketplaces.

The central figure in the process was not ARMA itself but a separate auction organizer — a legal entity that ARMA selected on a competitive basis under a dedicated procedure (Resolution No. 558). The organizer received a fee of 1% of the sale price for assets in Ukraine and up to 15% for assets abroad, and it was the organizer that was responsible for preparing the lot, valuing it, storing it, and supporting the auction. 

The auction had three consecutive stages: the first involved three rounds of real-time price increases; the second (a “repeat” auction) started at 50% of the first auction’s price; and the third (a “repeat” auction using the step-by-step price-reduction method, that is, a Dutch auction) likewise started at 50% of the initial price. The number of price-reduction steps at the third stage was not separately fixed in the Procedure — it was set by the operating regulations of the electronic trading system, meaning the administrator could change it without amending the resolution.

The auction preparation period was framed as a minimum — no fewer than 15 calendar days for real estate and no fewer than 10 days for perishable movable property.

The set of persons barred from purchasing assets was based on the official FATF list of states, the threshold of “10% or more of the shares of a resident of the aggressor state,” and a standard list of sanctions- and offshore-related restrictions. The Procedure contained no express ban on persons related to the asset’s owner or to a suspect or accused in the case — meaning a party to the proceedings could, in theory, buy back their own asset through a front person.

The sale of assets abroad required the competitive selection of a foreign organizer, and ARMA was obliged to inform the Cabinet of Ministers of the winner of that competition, whereupon the Cabinet adopted a separate decision recorded in its minutes.

What has changed in the sale of seized assets

The ARMA is now the auction organizer itself, and the separate, competitively selected organizer legal entity no longer exists.

A new anti-corruption rule has appeared — a ban on the purchase of an asset by persons related to the asset’s owner or to a suspect or accused, with a detailed list of indicators of relatedness (drawn from the Tax Code, the Law on Corruption Prevention, and the Law on Joint-Stock Companies. This closes a loophole that the old regulation had left open.

A maximum auction preparation period has been set — no more than 15 days for immovable property and 10 for movable property — which may speed up the turnover of assets.

The number of Dutch-auction steps at the third stage is now fixed directly in the Procedure — 99 steps — rather than left to the discretion of the administrator’s regulations.

The sale of assets abroad has been simplified — instead of the competitive selection of a foreign organizer and a mandatory minuted decision by the Cabinet of Ministers, there are now three clear methods of sale with no additional approval procedure: sale by the competent authorities of the foreign state, transfer of the asset to Ukraine, or another method provided for by an international treaty.

In the list of ineligible buyers, the aggressor state is now supplemented by an express reference to the Republic of Belarus, and the ownership criterion has been changed from “10% of shares” to “holders of a significant participation.”

The auction process itself has accordingly been simplified, and can be represented schematically as follows:

1. Valuation and decision — the ARMA values the asset and decides to sell it.
2. Announcement — published at least 7 days before the auction.
3. Registration — participants submit applications and pay a registration fee and a security deposit.
4. First auction — ascending price, three rounds of 3 minutes each, 1% increment.
5. If unsold, a second auction — the starting price is halved, again ascending.
6. If unsold, a third auction — Dutch format, with the price reduced automatically (99 steps).
7. Signing of the auction record and payment — the winner pays within 5 days.
8. Transfer of ownership — after payment; the seizure must additionally be lifted through the investigating judge.

Areas for improvement and points of risk

Although the adopted Procedure regulates the procedural aspects of the sale of seized assets reasonably well, certain points still call for attention. Some of them fall outside the Procedure itself and relate to adjacent provisions of the law. Others are matters that cannot be conclusively settled at the rule-making stage and only surface in the course of practical application, and therefore require further refinement as experience accumulates.

No notification of the owner and no right to appeal the sale decision

International standards on the sale of seized assets recommend that the owner and interested third parties be notified of the sale decision and have the right to challenge it in court. Current legislation contains no such mechanism: ARMA’s decision to sell an asset is published on ARMA’s official website, but this is more a matter of informing the general public than a personal notification.

The situation is complicated by the fact that the legal basis for the sale itself — the investigating judge’s ruling on the transfer of property for sale, issued under Article 100(6)(2) of the CPC of Ukraine — is currently not subject to appeal at all. By Resolution No. 17 of September 12, 2025, the Plenum of the Supreme Court has already applied to the Constitutional Court with a petition on the unconstitutionality of Articles 309 and 392 of the CPC of Ukraine, specifically in the part that makes such a ruling impossible to appeal.

It would therefore be advisable to address this problem proactively and provide for the possibility of appealing rulings on the transfer of property for sale.

No methodology for forming lots

The adopted act assigns the division of an asset into lots to the organizer (now ARMA itself) without setting any criteria or methodology for such division. Yet the sale of land on the Borzhava polonyna (460 hectares and ski-lift stations, an asset in the State Investment Project case) shows what unregulated discretion leads to:

• the asset was put up for auction three times through three different organizers, with the valuation falling successively from more than UAH 1.067 billion to UAH 347.9 million;
• the lots (245 + 208 + 41 land plots) were formed on the basis of a letter from SAPO, and ARMA’s justification amounted to a general assertion of “maximum commercial appeal,” with no public methodology or criteria;
• despite the repeat auctions, buyer interest remained low right up to the final successful sale — the asset was ultimately bought by persons related to the parties in the original case, though ARMA did not sign the sale record.

Because the structure and number of lots directly affect the range of potential buyers, market appeal, and the final price, the absence of a standardized approach to forming them is a systemic risk — the matter is left entirely to ARMA’s discretion, without any procedural safeguards or requirements to give reasons.

It would therefore be desirable for ARMA’s internal acts to define the procedure for dividing an asset or assets into lots, including criteria for combining or splitting property, requirements for justifying the chosen lot configuration, and the recording of that justification in the materials accompanying the sale decision.

The need for active monitoring of asset sales

The Borzhava case also shows the value of systematic rather than reactive oversight of how auctions unfold. The Prozorro.Sale analytics module makes it possible to track in real time precisely the indicators that in this case became problematic only after the fact: the number of failed auction attempts for the same asset, the pace at which the appraised value dropped between attempts, changes of organizers, and the intervals elapsing between them.

This also matters given that in 2025 the Prozorro.Sale system hosted 184 electronic auctions for the sale of seized assets, of which only 41 were successful. In that same year, ARMA received 33 rulings on the sale of assets, of which only 4 were carried out. In total, sales were completed under 20 rulings over the past year.

These results may be linked both to the complexity of the previous sale procedure (a legal entity had first to be selected on a competitive basis to act as auction organizer) and to the fact that not all of the assets transferred for sale were attractive to buyers — in part because of the lots in which they were offered.

Regular tracking of asset sales should therefore be ensured, so that potentially problematic cases can be addressed before a sale is completed rather than afterwards, when recovery is more difficult.

Conclusions and recommendations

The adopted resolution is a sound step in reforming the mechanism for selling seized assets. It also incorporates a substantial body of established international standards on auction transparency and conflict-of-interest prevention. The basic auction mechanics have remained stable throughout, which reduces the risks of the transition period.

That said, the adoption of this act is the beginning, not the end, of work on the asset-sale process. Some of the problems identified fall outside the secondary legislation itself and require changes at the level of primary law. Others — the division of assets into lots, and the quality and speed of sales in practice — cannot be exhaustively regulated in advance and emerge only in specific cases.

To strengthen these processes, we can recommend the following:

• To the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers — respond to the constitutional petition concerning the right to appeal rulings on the transfer of property for sale by making the corresponding amendments to the CPC of Ukraine;
• To ARMA — regulate, through internal acts, the methodology for forming lots, so as to prevent a recurrence of situations in which assets lose value.

At this stage, then, what matters is not only targeted legislative fine-tuning but also the need for systematic monitoring of how the new Procedure is applied in practice. 

Key nuances of the Grand Chamber’s decisions

In the Burkhan case, the Grand Chamber noted that while information from covert-action records can be used in disciplinary proceedings, it cannot serve as a ready-made conclusion. The HCJ must carefully assess it first.

The Supreme Court also explained that what matters in a disciplinary case is not the type of evidence — including information from covert-action records — but a fair procedure for using such data. The HCJ must independently assess such materials and determine whether they confirm a specific disciplinary offense, even before the underlying criminal proceedings conclude.

At the same time, the ruling includes an important safeguard against wrongful disciplinary action based on such materials. The HCJ may discipline a judge before a criminal case concludes only if there are obvious, clear, and convincing signs of conduct incompatible with judicial status — and only if there is no arbitrariness, political persecution, or other improper motive, and the right to a defense has been respected. 

Acting on this basis, the HCJ dismissed DACK judge Bohdan Sanin on June 22 — one of the key figures in the DACK tapes case. Covert recordings captured him discussing court cases outside official proceedings, coordinating positions with others, and effectively allowing outside influence over judicial decisions. He was dismissed because this conduct is incompatible with judicial status.

However, if reasonable doubt remains, it must be resolved in the judge’s favor. In such cases, the HCJ must suspend disciplinary proceedings until a verdict is reached, or decline to impose liability.

How this will affect disciplinary proceedings against judges

After these rulings, the argument that covert-action materials cannot be used in disciplinary proceedings at all has far less chance of success. Judges challenging HCJ decisions will now have to prove specific procedural violations, rather than arguing that such materials are inherently inadmissible.

These rulings also give the HCJ clear guidance: beyond a general green light to use such materials, the Council must avoid citing them formally without proper assessment and justification.

In short, the Grand Chamber’s rulings stabilize HCJ practice in cases involving covert investigative action materials. They reduce the risk of a mass review of HCJ decisions already made — while still preserving real procedural safeguards for judges against the arbitrary use of criminal case materials and pressure against them.

Vitalina Harkava, Head of the Public Procurement Sector, Executive Committee of Boiarka City Council 

When the legal department asked her to review every contract with additional agreements signed since 2021, Vitalina knew right away this wouldn’t be easy. The task covered 300–400 contracts. Before the training, she had already used the analytics module for price monitoring and looking up procurement information, but by her own admission, her knowledge of the tool was fairly superficial. The legal department’s request pushed her to look for a new approach. Reviewing several hundred contracts by hand, finding every additional agreement, and analyzing the changes would have taken at least two to three weeks.

The solution came during the training itself. At one of the webinars, Vitalina described her task and asked whether BI Prozorro could handle it. The answer turned out to be surprisingly simple: yes.

“Iryna showed me in literally 10-15 minutes how to do it in BI Prozorro. Honestly, I was amazed. Work I’d mentally set aside two-three weeks for suddenly became so much simpler. All I had left to do was the analysis itself and writing up the results,” she recalls. 

That was the moment Vitalina truly grasped BI Prozorro’s practical value. 

Still, she admits it took some time to get comfortable with the tool. The filters gave her the most trouble — one wrong step and the data she needed would disappear. So she kept going back to the recorded sessions, working through each step again from the start. That’s how she gradually built up an understanding of how the module works.

But the biggest discovery for her wasn’t the time savings — it was the ability to see how other communities operate. That’s exactly what she chose to explore for her homework assignment: what other communities procure, how many contracts they sign, how often they amend them, and which procurements they cancel. 

“I learned a lot about how other communities work and the mistakes they’ve made. That’s useful, because it means I don’t have to repeat the same mistakes in my own work,” Vitalina says. 

Since then, she’s started looking at other communities’ procurement in a new light. She believes, procurement data can reveal more about a community than any report. All it takes is a look at where the money goes to understand its priorities — road repairs, infrastructure development, or other projects.

Vitalina also uses the tool to spot risk in procurement. With Ukraine’s State Audit Service and other oversight bodies conducting regular checks, she says contracting authorities need to work proactively — analyzing their own contracts and flagging anything that might raise questions during a monitoring review.

“We need to check ourselves before an external monitoring review comes to us. We have to see our own risks and fix them ahead of time,” Vitalina says.

Oksana Karakai, Chief Specialist, Accounting and Finance Department, Kamianske City Council

“I wouldn’t even have noticed that.” That thought crosses Oksana Karakai’s mind more often than she’d like when she reviews State Audit Service monitoring reports and reads through auditors’ findings on other contracting authorities’ procurement.

Working at Kamianske City Council, Oksana regularly tracks procurement not just for her own community but for other organizations as well. She’s especially drawn to monitoring reports — which procurements get flagged, what violations auditors find, and what catches their attention when they review documents. After the BI Prozorro training, Oksana started paying much closer attention to these reports. Now she treats many auditors’ findings as pointers for her own work — a chance to catch risks before they become problems. 

“When I see a comment or a question from an auditor, I immediately check whether something similar could happen in our case,” she says.

Just a few months ago, Oksana only had a passing familiarity with BI Prozorro. She first encountered the module at a training session on price analysis, where she only managed to get comfortable with one section — but it was enough to realize the system had far more to offer. That’s what led her to sign up for TI Ukraine’s training. She says the practical exercises helped the most; working through them was how she gradually got a handle on the interface and the logic behind the module.

Oksana felt the practical benefit almost immediately. She needed to put together a list of contracts for the year. In the past, that meant gathering the information by hand, cross-checking it against her own spreadsheets, and making sure nothing had been missed. In BI Prozorro, the task went far faster.

“It took a bit of figuring out at first, but once I understood how it worked, I had a ready-made table right away. It’s incredibly fast — I mean, super fast,” Oksana recalls.

She says the whole task took about twenty minutes. Previously, putting together a sample like that could easily take half a day.

“You had to gather everything, check it, and format it properly. Here, in a few clicks, I got a full summary of every contract for the entire year,” she says.

Oksana believes the ability to work with open data and analytical tools is becoming increasingly important for local governments. However, she’s noticed that not everyone is ready to pick up new tools and change familiar ways of working.

She sums up BI Prozorro’s main advantage simply: it’s a large body of information that’s already organized and gathered in one place. Instead of spending hours hunting for data by hand, you can find it — and analyze it — in the same tool, in a fraction of the time.

Not long ago, she used to search for procurement records on the Prozorro portal herself, scrolling through dozens of pages and losing a lot of time in the process. Today, most of those tasks get done much faster. That’s why Oksana’s advice to anyone just starting out with BI Prozorro is not to be afraid of investing time in learning it — it’s nothing compared to the time it will end up saving.

Nataliia Kostenko, Chief Specialist, Department of Digital Transformation, Information Policy and Transparency, Sheptytskyi City Council

For Nataliia Kostenko, the BI Prozorro training wasn’t an introduction from scratch. She’s worked with BI modules for a long time and regularly uses them to analyze her community’s work. Even so, the training gave her a fresh perspective on what the analytics could do. 

“The main benefit is that we see the whole picture at once,” Nataliia says. 

She explains that an authorized procurement officer typically looks at one procurement or tender at a time. BI Prozorro makes it possible to see procurement across the entire community — from the executive committee down to municipal enterprises. That kind of overview helps not just with analysis, but with spotting risks and making decisions based on them.

When Nataliia showed the BI tools to staff in Sheptytskyi City Council’s land department, their reaction was strikingly emotional. Within minutes, the system generated a data sample that used to take hours to prepare.

“They were amazed that we could pull a complete sample for any given period in a single minute,” Nataliia recalls. 

Since the training, Nataliia has been using the module more actively to analyze the community’s biggest suppliers. It gives her a quick view of which companies work most often with the municipal enterprises and the executive committee. 

“This way we can see the scale of procurement, the scale of company participation in it, and draw our own conclusions,” Nataliia explains.

In her view, the real value of analytical tools lies in helping communities work more transparently, make decisions faster, and use limited staff resources more effectively.

“We used to have to collect a lot of information manually. Now we can see the whole system at a glance and make decisions based on data,” Nataliia says. 

That’s why she’s convinced analytical tools have long stopped being a nice-to-have for communities. Today, they’re one of the key tools of local governance.

The three communities’ stories are different. For one, BI Prozorro became a faster way to work with contracts; for another, a tool for finding risk; for a third, a way to see the whole procurement system at once. But all the training participants agree on one thing: data analysis is no longer a nice extra skill — it’s steadily becoming an essential part of how local governments do their work.

For city council staff or other local government representatives looking to get started with BI Prozorro, we recommend beginning with the video lecture series How to Manage Procurement.

This material was made possible with the support of the MATRA program of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ukraine.

Where things stand on the secondary legislation for ARMA’s work

The secondary instruments needed for the ARMA reform to function fully fall into the following categories: 

• institutional and organizational matters; 
• accountability and public oversight; 
• asset identification and intake into management; 
• selection of asset managers; 
• procurement of manager services; 
• asset management and oversight of it; asset disposal; 
• maintenance of the Unified State Register of Seized Assets (USRSA).

As of the second half of June 2026, nearly all the secondary legislation has been adopted; only the procedure for disposing of seized assets has yet to be updated.

The Methodology approved in June is one of the foundational elements of ARMA’s new regulatory architecture. This instrument governs the procedure for analyzing a seized asset to determine whether it can be managed effectively, and it also serves as an “entry filter” for the entire subsequent management process: without a positive conclusion from ARMA, an asset cannot be transferred into the Agency’s management.

How it used to be

Before the ARMA reform law took effect, there was no separate statutory rule on asset identification, nor any secondary instrument governing that procedure. Article 18-1 of the Law, which introduced the identification mechanism, is an entirely new provision. 

Before the reform, the practice was that the Agency issued written opinions on whether effective management of an asset could be ensured and its economic value preserved. However, the joint orders of the PGO and ARMA on the form of a request for such an opinion were never adopted, and the procedure for the Agency’s assessment of management feasibility was never regulated at the level of a Cabinet of Ministers resolution.

This produced several negative consequences: 

• ARMA took into management whatever it was given: an investigating judge’s ruling transferring an asset into management served as the sole and sufficient basis, and the Agency had no formal mechanism to assess in advance whether it could manage a particular asset effectively. As a result, assets accumulated at the Agency that it had no way of actually managing; neither the Law nor the secondary instruments required ARMA to conduct a mandatory site visit to inspect an asset before accepting it. 
•  Assets could therefore be transferred into management without proper documentation of their actual condition, which created risks of later disputes between the prosecutor and the Agency and made it impossible to plan management properly;
• the Law did not require ARMA to compare management and disposal options or assess an asset’s economic potential before deciding how to manage it;
•  interaction between prosecutors and ARMA at the stage preceding an asset’s transfer into management was ad hoc and unformalized. In practice, this led to assets being handed over with incomplete or contradictory information.

What the adopted Methodology sets out in detail 

The ARMA reform law introduced a fundamentally new model — a mandatory identification procedure as a precondition for accepting an asset into management — and the resolution adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers spells out that model at the secondary-legislation level. 

The key innovations are as follows: 

• Identification as a mandatory “entry filter.” ARMA manages only those seized assets for which a positive identification conclusion has been prepared (Article 18-1(1) of the Law). This is the first time the Agency’s right to assess management feasibility in advance has been enshrined in law;
• a standardized procedure for prosecutorial requests. The Methodology clearly defines the list of documents a prosecutor must attach to a request — title documents, a valuation report, technical specifications, photo and video materials — and sets the condition for submitting them: “where available and where doing so would not harm the criminal proceedings.” This balances ARMA’s need for information against the interests of the investigation;
• a mandatory physical inspection of the asset. The Methodology requires ARMA specialists to conduct an on-site visit to the asset’s actual location for inspection, documentation of its condition, and photo and video recording. The instruction to the relevant Interregional Territorial Department (ITD) of ARMA to accept an asset into management must be issued no later than the next business day after the request is received — a rule designed to keep the central office from stalling the start of the process;
• a comprehensive analysis of economic potential. The secondary legislation now requires ARMA to determine the optimal management approach through comparative analysis, weighing expected management income against the costs of storing and maintaining the asset. This provides the basis for a well-reasoned choice of strategy; 
• clear deadlines with a mechanism for extension. A baseline 10-day period is set for issuing a conclusion, extendable to 20 business days where grounds exist, provided a prosecutor is notified in writing within 5 business days. This removes the previous uncertainty over how long the procedure could take;
• a special regime for combat zones. The Methodology introduces a new exception — a moratorium on identifying assets located in temporarily occupied territories or areas where hostilities are underway. This resolves the previous uncertainty over such assets and ties the resumption of their identification to the official list maintained by the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories.

What to watch for during implementation

Despite the clear progress this regulation represents, its practical implementation may reveal certain shortcomings that should be tracked and promptly corrected through amendments to the relevant instruments. Some questions, moreover, were already apparent when the amendments to the ARMA Law were first adopted. 

Inconsistency with the Criminal Procedure Code

One of the key systemic risks remains the mismatch between the new identification procedure introduced by the ARMA reform law and the current version of Ukraine’s Criminal Procedure Code (CPC). Article 100 of the CPC still does not require a positive ARMA conclusion as a precondition for a prosecutor to petition an investigating judge to transfer an asset into management. In practice, the CPC still allows a prosecutor to initiate an asset’s transfer to ARMA without going through identification at all, which conflicts with the logic of the amended Law.

Article 100(6) of the CPC also does not reflect the new grounds for asset disposal introduced by Law No. 4503-IX, and the existing mechanism for notifying ARMA (Article 100(7)) remains in a provision that would now logically belong in Article 175 of the CPC, as part of the enforcement of a seizure order. The CPC’s failure to establish corresponding prosecutorial obligations regarding deadlines for responding to an ARMA conclusion, or to a notice that an asset’s economic value cannot be preserved, creates a degree of legal conflict that, in practice, is likely to be resolved in favor of the special provisions of the ARMA Law.

No consequences defined for a negative ARMA conclusion

The Methodology sets out in detail the procedure for identifying an asset and preparing the Agency’s conclusion on whether it can be managed. It does not, however, define any legal consequences for cases where ARMA formally determines that effective management of a given asset is not possible.

What happens to the asset after that? Who is required to act, and within what timeframe? Can the prosecutor apply again? These questions remain unanswered, since ARMA cannot accept such an asset into management in these cases — and if an investigating judge nonetheless issues a ruling to that effect, it will not meet the requirements of the special provision, Article 18-1 of the ARMA Law.

Conclusions and recommendations

The resolution adopted by the government is an important step toward a systemic approach to determining whether ARMA can manage a given asset effectively. It closes one of the key gaps in the ARMA reform’s secondary legislation by formalizing a procedure for identification that previously either did not exist at all or existed only in fragmentary form.

To prevent problems in law enforcement practice, the following recommendations should be considered alongside ongoing systemic monitoring of how the secondary legislation is being implemented.

1. The Criminal Procedure Code needs to be brought into line with the new model of interaction between prosecutors and ARMA. This requires amending Articles 100 and 175 of the CPC, specifically:

• aligning the list of grounds in Article 100(6) for transferring physical evidence into ARMA’s management (and for its disposal) with the provisions of the ARMA Law;
• moving to Article 175 of the CPC the requirement that a prosecutor send ARMA a copy of the seizure ruling and a request on the feasibility of transferring the asset into management no later than the next business day after the ruling is issued — together with requirements for the content of the request and the list of documents to be attached;
• establishing in Article 175 an obligation for the prosecutor to petition the investigating judge (or court) to transfer property into ARMA’s management no later than three days after receiving a positive conclusion, provided the owner has not given written consent;
• establishing an obligation for the prosecutor to petition the investigating judge or court to change the management approach or take other measures, within no more than five business days of receiving information from ARMA about circumstances that make it impossible to preserve the asset’s economic value. 

2. Regulate the consequences of a negative ARMA conclusion. Either a separate instrument or amendments to existing regulation should define what a prosecutor is to do after receiving a negative conclusion, and whether a repeat request is possible once the grounds for refusal have been addressed.

3. ARMA should develop internal operating procedures (a standard operating procedure) for staff at its central office and Interregional Territorial Departments, setting out in chronological order all actions relating to seized assets, with references to the specific regulatory provisions involved. Such a document would remove operational uncertainty and minimize the risk of inconsistent interpretation of similar situations.

What happened: a timeline of events

At the center of events is a criminal proceeding against Olena Lukash, former Minister of Justice of Ukraine, charged with misappropriation of budget funds and official forgery. Here is how the HCJ decision regarding HACC Appeals Chamber judges came about.

2014 — Proceeding entered into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations; investigation conducted by the Prosecutor General’s Office. 

October 17, 2019 — Deputy Prosecutor General Chumak serves Lukash with a revised notice of suspicion.

October 21, 2019 — Prosecutor General Riaboshapka transfers the investigation to the NABU; the HACC was henceforth to exercise judicial oversight in the case.

March 2020 — Lukash’s defense counsel files a complaint against the notice of suspicion with the Pecherskyi District Court; the SAPO prosecutor requests the Supreme Court transfer the case to the HACC.

October 12, 2020 — The Supreme Court declines: because the notice was not signed by the SAPO prosecutor, the case supposedly falls outside the HACC’s jurisdiction; the investigating judge of the Pecherskyi District Court grants the defense counsel’s complaint and cancels the suspicion.

November 2020 — The Kyiv Court of Appeal leaves the defense counsel’s complaint against the Pecherskyi District Court’s decision without granting it.

January 2021 — The HACC Appeals Chamber, following the SAPO prosecutor’s complaint, cancels the Pecherskyi District Court’s ruling and closes the proceeding on the complaint.

January 22 and 25, 2021 — Olena Lukash files complaints with the HCJ against the actions of the HACC Appeals Chamber judges. In her complaint, she argued that the HACC Appeals Chamber judges had no authority to review the case.

November 2025 — The Third Disciplinary Chamber of the HCJ refuses to hold the HACC Appeals Chamber judges liable.

May 2026 — The HCJ sitting in plenary session sets aside this decision and issues warnings to judges Kaluhina, Semennykov, and Mykhailenko.

The complaint against the disciplinary chamber’s decision was filed by attorney Ivashchenko—Lukash’s defense counsel, who is himself a defendant in the same criminal proceeding. It is also worth noting that the Supreme Court’s October 2020 decision, on which the HCJ relies, was based on a specific criterion—who signed the notice of suspicion—a criterion that does not actually appear in the Criminal Procedure Code’s provisions on HACC jurisdiction.

The “case dumping” scheme through the Pecherskyi District Court

From 2020 onward, subjects of NABU investigations began exploiting investigating judges, predominantly from the Pecherskyi District Court in Kyiv, as a tool to remove their cases from anti-corruption proceedings. 

The scheme is straightforward: a complaint is filed with the Pecherskyi District Court alleging inaction by the Prosecutor General’s Office concerning the Prosecutor General’s failure to review a defense motion within a NABU criminal proceeding—despite the fact that formally such a court lacks authority to review complaints in NABU cases. Yet the complainants argue that because the Prosecutor General’s Office is located within the territorial jurisdiction of the Pecherskyi District Court, that court is authorized to hear such complaints. The court then issues a ruling favorable to the suspect—for example, ordering the transfer of the case to another investigative body or canceling the suspicion. Subsequently, the Prosecutor General’s Office complies with this ruling, and the case is effectively removed from the system.

This is precisely what happened in the Ukrbud case, involving Oleh Tatarov, then Deputy Head of the Presidential Office. There, the Pecherskyi District Court unlawfully ordered the removal of the case from NABU’s investigative authority. The Prosecutor General’s Office complied, and later Office prosecutors blocked all efforts to return the proceeding to the Bureau by withdrawing an appeal filed with the HACC Appeals Chamber. Similar situations arose in the cases of Zlochevskyi, VAB Bank, and the Dubnevych thermal power plant—matters we will discuss further.

The response to this was as follows: SAPO prosecutors, and sometimes PGO prosecutors, filed appellate complaints with the HACC Appeals Chamber. That court repeatedly reviewed and cancelled rulings issued by the Pecherskyi and other district courts, consistently holding: appellate review of any decisions in cases falling within the HACC’s jurisdiction may be conducted exclusively by the HACC’s Appeal Chamber. 

Yet the Supreme Court, in several decisions concerning the Zlochevskyi case in March 2021 and August 2021, as well as in the case of DACK judges from August 2020, held that when a decision was formally issued by a court of general jurisdiction, it must be appealed to the appellate court of general jurisdiction, not the HACC Appeals Chamber. Interestingly, this position conflicted to some degree with other similar situations.

In light of this, the HACC Appeals Chamber was sometimes compelled to dismiss appeals of district court rulings. This occurred in the Zlochevskyi case and in the VAB Bank case.

The problem of jurisdiction over NABU cases in courts of general jurisdiction was so serious that it appeared in the National Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2023–2025 as a separate priority. This means that the state, at the level of a government document, acknowledged that judicial review of NABU cases by other courts represents a systemic problem that must be addressed. The state should therefore adopt specific legislation to prevent such practices. Yet by holding accountable the judges who resisted this practice, the HCJ is moving in the opposite direction.

Against this backdrop, the disciplinary case concerning three HACC Appeals Chamber judges developed—judges whom the High Council of Justice warned in May 2026.

Why HACC Appeals Chamber judges had grounds to act as they did

The January 12, 2021 ruling of the HACC Appeals Chamber in the case of Lukash’s complaint against the notice of suspicion contains detailed and coherent legal reasoning.

The judges proceeded from the premise that Article 33-1 of the Criminal Procedure Code establishes subject-matter jurisdiction of the HACC, which takes priority over territorial jurisdiction. This means: if a criminal proceeding, by its characteristics, falls within the HACC’s jurisdiction, no other court—neither at the trial level nor at the appellate level—may hear it. Jurisdiction is determined by the properties of the proceeding itself, not by which court actually issued a particular decision.

At the time of appellate review, investigative authority in this case had been assigned to the NABU, and the case materials had been transferred to that agency. Thus, the condition set out in Section 20-2 of the Transitional Provisions of Ukraine’s Criminal Procedure Code—that pre-trial investigation is conducted by NABU—was satisfied. Consequently, subject-matter jurisdiction of the HACC applied, meaning that appellate review fell within the competence of the HACC Appeals Chamber.

Regarding the Supreme Court’s October 12, 2020 ruling, which denied the prosecutor’s request to transfer the case from the Pecherskyi District Court to the HACC, the HACC Appeals Chamber judges offered a clear explanation: the Supreme Court was deciding only the question of transfer of the proceeding from one trial court to another—and only within the scope of arguments the prosecutor had raised in the motion. The Supreme Court neither decided nor could have decided the question of appellate jurisdiction for the prosecutor’s later filed appeal.

Beyond this, the HACC Appeals Chamber judges’ position on jurisdiction was neither novel nor isolated—it reflected established practice that had developed both before and after the January 12, 2021 ruling.

The HACC Appeals Chamber had repeatedly reviewed rulings of investigating judges of the Pecherskyi District Court in NABU cases, and the Supreme Court did not challenge this:

• In the VAB Bank case, the HACC Appeals Chamber in July 2020 cancelled a Pecherskyi District Court ruling and closed the proceeding on the complaint. The Cassation Criminal Court within the Supreme Court three times—in September, October, and November 2020—refused to open cassation proceedings on appeals challenging this HACC ruling, finding arguments about unlawful action by the anti-corruption court to be unsubstantiated.
•  In the Dubnevych thermal power plant case, in March 2021, the HACC Appeals Chamber cancelled a Pecherskyi District Court ruling, and the Supreme Court twice—in April and May 2021—refused cassation review, stating that the HACC ruling was not subject to appeal. 

Moreover, judges of the Kyiv Court of Appeal themselves directed appeals from district court decisions to the HACC Appeals Chamber:

• In the case of the former head of the Chernihiv RSA, in December 2020, the Kyiv Court of Appeal independently transferred an appeal to the HACC Appeals Chamber, determining that the anti-corruption court was the proper appellate court in proceedings falling within the HACC’s jurisdiction—regardless of which trial court issued the challenged decision.
• In the Dubnevych thermal power plant case mentioned above, the Kyiv Court of Appeal in March 2021 transferred the case for review by the HACC Appeals Chamber.

Furthermore, in September 2023, the Supreme Court confirmed the lawfulness of the HACC Appeals Chamber’s actions in another instructive episode: the head of the Pecherskyi District Court for more than two years ignored fourteen requests from the HACC Appeals Chamber for case materials relating to an appeal filed in the Zlochevskyi case, claiming that the anti-corruption court supposedly was not the proper appellate court. The HACC Appeals Chamber submitted a separate ruling to the HCJ concerning the head of court’s violation of Criminal Procedure Code requirements. In September 2023, the Supreme Court left the Pecherskyi District Court head’s cassation appeal without granting it, confirming that determining the question of jurisdiction does not fall within the authority of a trial court head and cannot serve as grounds for refusing to comply with lawful requests from an appellate court.

And in December 2024, the Supreme Court itself granted a motion and transferred an appeal from the Kyiv Court of Appeal to the HACC Appeals Chamber, citing a violation of jurisdictional rules.

Thus, the legal position for which the judges received a warning was not a departure from practice but part of it—consistently supported by both the Kyiv Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court itself, albeit with certain exceptions in specific proceedings.

What is wrong with the HCJ decision

In May 2026, the High Council of Justice characterized as “obvious” a violation of what, by July 2021, had already been established as settled practice.

The HACC Appeals Chamber had been reviewing Pecherskyi District Court rulings in NABU cases since 2020—and the Supreme Court did not recognize this as unlawful. Conversely, in refusing to open cassation proceedings, the Supreme Court effectively confirmed the lawfulness of the HACC’s actions. Under such circumstances, the HCJ’s assertion about the “obviousness” of the violation is at best unconvincing.

Moreover, the HCJ overlooked the fact that the Supreme Court in December 2024 did precisely what the judges did in 2021. 

The judges, both in their decision and during HCJ proceedings, consistently explained that the Supreme Court in October 2020 was addressing only the transfer of proceedings from one trial court to another. In our view, that same Supreme Court decision contained rather peculiar reasoning regarding the determination of jurisdiction based on who served the notice of suspicion—conditions for such a criterion do not exist in Ukraine’s Criminal Procedure Code.

The HCJ further contends that two conflicting appellate court decisions arose concerning the same ruling. This does not correspond to what actually occurred. The Kyiv Court of Appeal reviewed a complaint filed by the defense counsel of the suspected person, counsel who presented no substantive arguments about any illegality or lack of evidentiary basis for the ruling in their favor. The court emphasized this point in its decision. By contrast, the HACC Appeals Chamber reviewed a complaint filed by the prosecutor, who sought to set aside the same ruling and close the proceeding for substantive violations. Different appellants, different legal requests, different legal positions on review. The HACC Appeals Chamber did not review the Kyiv Court of Appeal’s decision and raised no challenge to it.

Furthermore, at HCJ proceedings, the HACC Appeals Chamber judges pointed out that the HCJ had already declined to open disciplinary proceedings in instances where a HACC Appeals Chamber judge had suspended execution of a Pecherskyi District Court ruling, and subsequently a panel of judges cancelled the corresponding district court ruling.

Under these circumstances, to speak of intentional violation means to contend that the judges acted unlawfully while possessing genuine legal grounds for their position. We found no basis for such a conclusion.

Conclusions and open questions

Following this analysis, several questions remain.

Will the legislature close this gap? The Criminal Procedure Code’s provisions governing jurisdiction over NABU cases in courts of general jurisdiction still contain no clear answer to a situation where a local court, contrary to law, issues a decision in a NABU case. 

What does this mean for NABU and SAPO cases in practice? The problem arose because, during a period when the SAPO leadership post was vacant, certain of its powers were exercised by the Prosecutor General. Attorneys, disregarding rules of subject-matter jurisdiction, challenged actions or inaction of the Prosecutor General before the Pecherskyi District Court. The judges of that court ruled on such complaints. If the term of the SAPO leadership ends and stable leadership of the specialized prosecution service is not ensured by then, the problems will return.

Why did the HCJ not notice contradictions in its own practice? During HCJ proceedings, the HACC Appeals Chamber judges pointed out that the HCJ had previously declined to open disciplinary cases in similar circumstances. How can the same actions in one case constitute no disciplinary breach, while in another they do? The HCJ decision offers no answer.

Fundamentals cluster: the main test on the road to the EU

Accession talks for every candidate country rest on 35 negotiating chapters. Thirty-three of them are grouped into six thematic clusters, while the other two are handled separately.

Andrii Borovyk calls “Fundamentals” the heart of the whole enlargement methodology, since it embodies the EU’s core values. It opens first and closes last, and without progress here, movement on other fronts can stall.

“When we talk about this cluster, the conversation centers on the rule of law and building a state governed by law, but it also has quite specific parts — the negotiating chapters where we need to keep showing progress. Of course, only if we want to,” the expert explains.

Each chapter has its own number and name, including:

• Chapter 23 (Judiciary and Fundamental Rights): court reform, judicial independence, and a real fight against top-level corruption.
• Chapter 24 (Justice, Freedom and Security): overhauling law enforcement, fighting organized crime, and bringing order to customs and borders.
• Chapter 5 (Public Procurement): moving all public and defense tenders onto strict European standards.
• Chapter 32 (Financial Control): protecting EU funds and auditing the budget (the work of the Accounting Chamber and the State Audit Service).
• Chapter 18 (Statistics): transparent, accurate economic and population data that meet Eurostat standards.

What benchmarks are, and how the EU will measure Ukraine’s progress

To avoid the mistakes of past enlargements, the EU has changed how it evaluates reforms. Andrii Borovyk recalls that several countries saw scandals over the rule of law or corruption after joining. In Romania, for example, specialized anti-corruption bodies were set up and went after a “big fish” — a former prime minister. Later, the authorities cut back these bodies’ independence, and people took to the streets. 

That’s why the EU adopted a new enlargement methodology. As a result, the Fundamentals cluster includes strict requirements on the rule of law and anti-corruption efforts, and these will be watched especially closely.

Progress will be measured through “benchmarks” — conditions Ukraine must meet. They come in two types: interim benchmarks, which apply only to the two most important chapters of the first cluster — 23, Judiciary and Fundamental Rights, and 24, Justice, Freedom and Security — and closing benchmarks for each chapter.

The European Commission will prepare intergovernmental reports assessing how well these conditions are met.

“There will be constant monitoring, and essentially any change in legislation, any event in Ukraine that touches these areas, will be under very close watch,” Andrii Borovyk stresses.

Passing laws is only the first step. What follows is tracking how they’re implemented and enforced.

“We may see in EU reports that Ukraine has made solid progress fighting corruption, backed by indicators such as the number of cases and court verdicts. The same goes for recovering criminal assets. The EU will ask: ‘You passed the legislation? Well done! Now show us how you’re applying it.’ So we’ll need to show how much was recovered in specific cases. It’s a massive, complex process, and without constant communication between all branches of government, making progress will be very, very hard,” the expert adds.

Each year, the European Commission also publishes an Enlargement Report on every candidate country, including Ukraine, scoring each negotiating chapter. Converted into numbers, the scale runs from 1 (no progress) to 5 (full alignment with EU standards). 

“According to last year’s Enlargement Report, Ukraine’s average score now stands at 2.4. But these results may not tell the whole story, since something is always improving somewhere while something else is slipping,” the Executive Director says.

Among the recent improvements, he points to the comprehensive public procurement law that the Verkhovna Rada passed in late May. Ukraine’s President signed it on June 24.

Ukraine is still waiting for the European Commission’s final assessment of this law, but Andrii Borovyk believes it clearly brings the country closer to EU standards, marking “moderate, maybe even good, progress” in this area.

In the anti-corruption field, the top priority is preserving anti-corruption institutions and expanding their powers. For instance, anti-corruption bodies need the ability to investigate cases involving members of parliament without waiting for the Prosecutor General’s permission. They should also gain access to independent, professional expertise.

Ukraine must also keep delivering strong results on corruption cases. Andrii Borovyk notes that this area is in better shape, since the number of verdicts and cases handled by the High Anti-Corruption Court keeps growing each year.

Why Ukraine’s EU integration has slowed down

Andrii Borovyk names several reasons the reform process has slowed over the past 12 months:

• Waning US attention to reforms after the presidential election, given its role as a key partner for Ukraine;
• The law the Verkhovna Rada passed in July 2025, which curbed the independence of the NABU and the SAPO;
• “Fatigue” among lawmakers.

“We keep hearing that a few dozen, maybe close to a hundred, MPs want out. I think all branches of government need an honest conversation to find common ground. Civil society is always ready to help, and it already does — its representatives step in as technical experts drafting documents or preparing independent assessments of the process itself,” the expert says. 

Beyond winning the war, he adds, Ukraine needs a second political goal to rally around: EU membership. 

“Ambitions need to wait, and everyone should work toward this goal, moving as one group. It sounds philosophical, but you can’t wave a magic wand like in Harry Potter to get this done. It’s all hard work,” Borovyk adds.

In the expert’s view, civil society’s attention may be the best defense against political pressure. During wartime, when elections are impossible and political accountability is hard to enforce, he urges Ukrainians not to lose their political memory.

“Unfortunately, our political memory isn’t always strong, so ‘old politicians’ often end up back in power anyway. But last July, when parliament passed something we — and the EU — completely disagreed with, we showed we could respond with peaceful protest. I wouldn’t want that to become routine, and I really hope parliament and the president don’t repeat such strange moves.”

Ukraine is the first country in the world fighting for survival while pursuing two paths at once — defending its independence and nationhood on the front line, and integrating into the EU.

“I don’t know of any other country that’s done this. I don’t know of any country that tried to carry out reforms during a war. We’re not always happy with them, and there have been far fewer over the past 12 months than at the start, but this is very hard, and without it, joining the EU will be difficult,” Borovyk concludes.

What reforms will actually mean for Ukrainians

The reforms Ukraine must carry out to join the EU directly affect every Ukrainian’s life. Meeting all the required criteria, Andrii Borovyk believes, will improve the justice system, the work of state bodies, and public administration overall.

“How will it affect people’s lives to have professional, honest courts with strong technical capacity? When you go to court without thinking, ‘Why bother, it’s all bought and paid for’ — that’s already a major impact,” the expert reflects.

The goal of these reforms is to build a regulated legal environment — for running a business, say, or protecting conservation areas from illegal construction.

“As a result, whatever field a Ukrainian works in will better align with the rule of law. People will know how to act and what to expect if a ruling turns out unfair — and that will still happen sometimes, since not every EU member state is perfect either. What matters is that everyone can expect a fair ruling in a dispute,” Andrii Borovyk adds. 

The next step in the negotiation process is the final approval of benchmarks for the first cluster. Ideally, negotiations on the remaining five clusters would open as soon as possible after that.

Then comes the long work of carrying out reforms, where Ukraine must not just change laws but prove they work.

Transparency International Ukraine, together with colleagues from other organizations, tracks this process by publishing annual “shadow reports” assessing Ukraine’s progress against its commitments. These reports cover the state of anti-corruption efforts, the rule of law, justice, and public procurement.

“These documents aren’t meant to criticize the authorities — they’re meant to show where we currently stand and which direction we should be heading on the path to EU integration. The reports don’t represent the European Commission’s position, though in our case, it helps fund and support their preparation. Some candidate countries don’t have anything like this, but how could Ukraine not have shadow reports, given how enormous and relentless civil society and journalist activity here is? We’re constantly held up as an example in many other countries,” Andrii Borovyk explains.

This publication has been produced with financial support from Norway. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Transparency International Ukraine and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the Government of Norway. 

The Prosecutor General’s Monopoly Over MP Cases

A parliamentarian should be protected from pressure for their political position, voting, statements, and general representative activities. Without such protection, an MP could become dependent on executive power. However, Article 482-2 of the Criminal Procedure Code “protects” MPs from a far broader range of situations. It applies not only to politically motivated prosecution for parliamentary activity but extends to corruption offenses that have nothing to do with protecting the parliamentary mandate.

As far back as 2017, GRECO (Group of States Against Corruption) recommended implementing clear and effective measures to ensure that the removal of immunity from parliamentarians would not prevent criminal prosecution of those suspected of committing corruption offenses. In particular, it proposed adopting clarifications on this matter with clear and objective criteria.

Interestingly, in 2020, after immunity was removed, GRECO concluded that this recommendation had been implemented only “satisfactory.” According to the Council of Europe’s monitoring body, this assessment was apparently linked to the fact that the new law can only be effectively implemented in the absence of abuses and political bias. And this is something Ukraine cannot yet hope for—even the Prosecutor General remains a politically interested party. He is appointed by the President of Ukraine with the consent of MPs, without formalized competitive procedures assessing competence and integrity.

From nearly the beginning, the expert community noted that such a construction effectively creates a modified form of immunity from criminal prosecution. Moreover, the Criminal Procedure Code does not provide analogous special procedures for initiating criminal proceedings against judges, who also enjoy certain immunity. 

During the discussion of the relevant draft laws themselves, some MPs emphasized that making investigations dependent on the will of a single person—the Prosecutor General—creates corruption risks and may result in the impossibility of prosecuting an MP criminally.

The practice already demonstrates the problem 

One of the first prominent examples involving an MP was the case of Oleksandr Yurchenko. In September 2020, the NABU publicly announced that it had submitted materials and a draft suspicion notice to Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova for registering proceedings and notifying the MP of suspicion. However, the Prosecutor General’s Office replied that it saw insufficient grounds for registering proceedings. 

The NABU was effectively forced to publicly call on the Prosecutor General to sign the suspicion notice. Eventually this did happen, but the episode itself demonstrated the key point: a corruption case against an MP can be stalled in this manner.

We observed numerous examples where journalists uncovered suspected corruption by MPs, yet the Prosecutor General refused to open proceedings. And the most recent and telling such case is the matter against Iryna Kormyshkina. In early 2025, she and her husband admitted guilt and, based on a plea agreement, received a sentence for illicit enrichment and money laundering. However, as far back as 2022, the Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin had stalled the initiation of the case, first refusing to register the crime report, before a court eventually ordered him to launch an investigation. 

These cases are not isolated, and from time to time they become a genuine obstacle to NABU and SAPO investigations of high-profile corruption within parliament.

Why comparison with other countries works against the Ukrainian model

In democratic states, parliamentary immunities typically follow a different logic, designed to protect the parliamentary function rather than create a blanket barrier to criminal process. The Venice Commission has drawn attention to this dangerous paradox: in young democracies, immunity can simultaneously protect MPs from state abuse and become an obstacle to fighting corruption.

This is deeply important for Ukraine. We are not an established democracy with a substantial legacy of political traditions and unconditional confidence in the prosecution service, law enforcement agencies, and political institutions—Ukrainian institutions are still earning such trust from society. For this very reason, a model in which corruption proceedings against an MP depend on one politically appointed official cannot be considered optimal.

Moreover, even developed democracies, while granting their parliamentarians immunity similar to what we abandoned in 2019, do not erect barriers to initiating pre-trial investigations. And certainly, do not afford protection to MPs from all categories of criminal offenses, including corruption—the Venice Commission considers this unacceptable.

In many European approaches, immunity often applies only to arrest, detention, or prosecution (formal suspicion)—as in Belgium, France, Italy, and Portugal. 

Several of these countries conducted constitutional reforms as far back as the 1990s, whereby opening an investigation against a parliamentarian requires no separate authorization. In France, for example, following constitutional reform, Chamber consent to opening criminal proceedings is not mandatory—it is required only for detention, arrest, and other judicial control measures. In Italy, Constitutional Law No. 3 of October 29, 1993 removed the requirement for prior Chamber consent to open proceedings against MPs.

The Ukrainian model moved in the opposite direction, placing even the submission of information to the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations (URPI) under special control.

Why the SAPO head should receive such powers

Ukraine deliberately created a separate anti-corruption system in which the NABU investigates high-profile corruption, the SAPO provides prosecutorial supervision, and the HACC ensures judicial control and adjudication of such cases. This model was meant to reduce the dependence of investigations on any political influences. Yet the Criminal Procedure Code has long recognized the special role of the SAPO head regarding MPs, giving him the authority to independently sign notices of suspicion to them. 

However, that same Article 482-2 does not grant the SAPO head an analogous role regarding submission of information to the URPI or approval of key investigative applications during pre-trial investigation. This creates a contradiction: the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office can notify an MP of suspicion, but lacks direct authority to independently launch proceedings or approve a search or other investigative measure. And this is all the more significant because ultimate control over searches, arrests, interception of communications, and preventive measures must still be exercised by an investigating judge.

Furthermore, when addressing the legislative removal of parliamentary immunity, an alternative draft law had proposed authorizing the SAPO head to perform the same functions regarding prosecution of MPs as the Prosecutor General. In its explanatory memorandum, the authors specifically noted that concentrating powers solely in the Prosecutor General creates risks that material evidence and traces of crime could be destroyed, and that it may become impossible to conduct investigative measures swiftly.

Beyond this, granting such powers to the SAPO head benefits not only the efficiency of anti-corruption investigations, but the MPs themselves. In cases involving parliamentarians, there is always a risk that any decision by the Prosecutor General will be perceived as political pressure, especially when it concerns opposition cases. Involving the SAPO head in NABU cases reduces this risk by shifting decisions to a more specialized and institutionally removed plane—recall that our Prosecutor General is appointed by specific officials. 

For honest MPs, such powers in the SAPO head mean greater protection from selective political prosecution; for society, it means less reason to believe that anti-corruption cases are blocked or initiated based on political expediency.

***

The cancellation of parliamentary immunity in Ukraine was an important political decision, but it did not resolve the problem of MP privileges in criminal procedure. Ukraine should not have replaced old parliamentary immunity with new prosecutorial immunity.

As practice has shown, such an approach is especially dangerous in corruption cases against MPs, as it creates a risk that investigations may be delayed or blocked not through weakness of evidence, but through the lack of political will of a single official—the Prosecutor General.

Granting such powers to the SAPO head in proceedings within NABU’s investigative jurisdiction will strengthen guarantees for parliamentarians and make it impossible to use such cases as a hidden form of immunity. And this benefits both MPs and anti-corruption law enforcement agencies.

Goal 1. Criminal justice (2.5/20 — up 0.5)

• Government track: The draft law developed by the Ministry of Justice to deliver on elements of this point of the plan was sent back for revision following a meeting of the government committee. It is currently being refined together with the NABU and the NACP, but the document has still not been published for public consultation or registered in parliament.
• MP initiatives: Two draft laws have been registered in the Verkhovna Rada — No. 15333 (on improving the efficiency of proceedings after the expiry of pre-trial investigation deadlines) and No. 15334 (on improving investigative jurisdiction and international cooperation).

Goal 2. Ensure that NABU has effective access to impartial, timely and high-quality forensic examinations (2/10 — up 1.5)

Providing the NABU with effective access to impartial and timely examinations is still stalled by the lack of a shared vision among the agencies.

• The Ministry of Justice has begun work on amendments to the Law on Forensic Examination to strengthen safeguards for forensic examination activities.
• The NABU has submitted its comments, but significant disagreements remain between the ministry and the Bureau over the concept for establishing such an expert institution.

Goal 7. International experts in the HQCJ selection (1.5/10 — up 0.5)

The issue of expanding international experts’ participation in the Selection Commission for members of the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) remains frozen.

• Draft Law No. 13382, intended to restore international experts’ participation in selecting HQCJ members, has been stalled in the Verkhovna Rada since June 2025.
• According to the Cabinet of Ministers, another legislative initiative has now been drafted and is undergoing consultations with the European Commission. This document has not yet been officially registered or published.

Goal 9. Adopt the Anti-Corruption Strategy and the SAP by the end of June 2026 (1.5/5 — up 1)

The plan required the Anti-Corruption Strategy and the State Anti-Corruption Program (SAP) to be adopted by Q2 2026, but the deadlines have already been missed.

• Blocked in parliament: Three competing draft laws are awaiting consideration in the relevant parliamentary committee. The most ambitious, and the one consistent with EU integration requirements, is Draft Law No. 15230 from the head of the Anti-Corruption Committee.
• SAP delay: The State Anti-Corruption Program was developed in parallel, but the NACP will release its draft for public consultation only after parliament finally votes on the Strategy.

Goal 10. Strengthen internal control and whistleblower protection (1/10 — up 0.5)

There are already initial practical steps in building up internal control and efforts to adapt the Ukrainian system to European standards, although the core legislative framework is still awaiting final approval. 

• The State Audit Service has stepped up its checks, Internal Audit Standards in line with the European GIAS requirements have entered into force, and a whistleblower portal is operating, though it still needs technical improvements.
• Several strategic goals have been incorporated into Draft Laws No. 15230, No. 15230-1, and No. 15230-2, On the Principles of State Anti-Corruption Policy for 2026–2030, which are currently awaiting consideration in the relevant committee.

Other goals of the plan: the overall picture according to experts

In the other reform areas reviewed, the situation also remains unsatisfactory:

• Selection of the Prosecutor General (0.5/10 — up 0.5): there has been virtually no progress in revising the competitive selection procedures, with only one MP draft law registered.
• Selection for senior positions in the prosecution service (0.5/10 — no change): transparent competitive appointments have still not been restored, and new government initiatives risk dragging out the process through lengthy consultations.
• SBI reform (1/10 — no change): the relevant draft laws have not been presented for broad discussion, creating the risk that new leadership will be selected under the old procedures.
• New CCU judges and HCJ members (1/5 — no change): the competitive procedures are continuing with delays, and key vacancies under certain quotas remain unfilled.
• Judicial integrity and enforcement proceedings (3.5/10 — up 1.5): the legislation adopted does not take into account the EU’s recommendations on checks of the integrity declarations of Supreme Court judges, although there is some positive movement on digitalizing enforcement procedures.

This baseline evaluation covers the “Kachka-Kos plan” — a set of equivalent reforms defined in December 2025. Alongside Transparency International Ukraine, which focused on key anti-corruption areas, the study involved the MEZHA Anti-Corruption Center, European Pravda, the ANTS National Interests Advocacy Network, DEJURE Foundation, New Europe Center, Centre of Policy and Legal Reform, and the Anti-Corruption Action Centre.