Today, the Verkhovna Rada is preparing to consider amendments to Draft Law No. 12414 that could dismantle key guarantees of independence for the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.
In particular, the proposed amendments would grant the Prosecutor General the authority to:
- Withdraw cases from the NABU and assign them to other law enforcement bodies
- Act as the de facto head of the SAPO and delegate SAPO prosecutors’ powers to other prosecutors
- Issue binding written instructions to NABU detectives
- Unilaterally close cases involving high-ranking officials.
The procedural autonomy of the SAPO would also be significantly limited. Specifically:
- SAPO prosecutors would lose the authority to determine NABU’s jurisdiction in exceptional cases
- The Head of the SAPO would no longer be able to resolve jurisdictional disputes in cases potentially handled by the NABU
- The Head of the SAPO would be stripped of authority to amend appeals and cassation complaints submitted by SAPO prosecutors.
These amendments also violate Article 116 of the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada, as they radically change the original scope of Draft Law No. 12414.
Now, these damaging provisions are not publicly available. However, Transparency International Ukraine has received confirmation from multiple sources that the vote is being planned for today.
This poses a direct threat to the independence of the NABU — one of Ukraine’s key anti-corruption institutions established with the support of international partners to be shielded from political interference.
We call on Members of Parliament not to support these legislative changes and not to reverse the progress of the anti-corruption reform we have been building since 2014.
