The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the discriminatory law No.8003, which introduces new requirements for the director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau. On 7 September, MPs adopted it as a basis and in general.
This initiative of MPs, although a better substitute for the controversial “Klochko’s draft law,” is more harmful than useful. This law prohibits the lawyers who, after the start of the full-scale invasion, went abroad for personal reasons and stayed there for more than three weeks from participating in the competition for the NABU Director.
The exception concerns those citizens who left for treatment due to wounds, concussions, diseases related to military service, or on a business trip in the interests of national security and defense.
Transparency International Ukraine stressed that such restrictions artificially narrow the number of willing candidates — mostly women — and urged the President to use the veto.
However, the law has now officially entered into force. Therefore, the initiative will mainly affect female lawyers (possibility for conscription-age men to exit Ukraine is limited), which is a kind of discrimination, in particular, gender-based. As a result, female lawyers can contest this provision of law in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.
The law has now officially entered into force. Therefore, the initiative will mainly affect female lawyers, which is a kind of discrimination, in particular, gender-based.
