Why Decisions in Corruption Cases Against MPs Should Not Rest with the Prosecutor General Alone

The material was prepared in co-authorship with Andriy Tkachuk, legal advisor to Transparency International Ukraine.

Ukraine has transitioned to direct negotiations with the European Union on membership, a path that is impossible without swift implementation of already-agreed anti-corruption commitments. One of the key points reflected in the Fundamentals cluster benchmarks, the Kachka-Kos plan, and the Ukraine Facility remains the genuine independence of the SAPO leadership. This concerns granting him exclusive authority to approve investigative measures and open proceedings against MPs—a step that would demonstrate whether Ukraine is ready for real change in its courts and corridors of power.

This article examines why the SAPO head requires such powers and how this will affect anti-corruption investigations into parliamentary representatives overall.

The cancellation of parliamentary immunity was one of the most prominent political promises made by Ukraine’s fifth and sixth presidents. Eventually, in 2019, the Verkhovna Rada indeed amended Article 80 of the Ukrainian Constitution, removing the provision that MPs could not be prosecuted, detained, or arrested without parliamentary consent. Both the draft law and the law itself were recognized as constitutional by the Constitutional Court.

Although the law eliminated the need to obtain Verkhovna Rada consent for investigative measures against MPs, it simultaneously introduced a new mechanism: instead of parliamentary consent, key procedural and investigative actions must be approved by the Prosecutor General.

Law No. 388-IX supplemented the Criminal Procedure Code with Article 482-2, which stipulates that only the Prosecutor General may register criminal proceedings against an MP. The same official also approves applications for detention, remand in custody or house arrest, searches, and interception of correspondence, phone calls, and other measures restricting rights and freedoms.

And it is precisely these Prosecutor General powers that have proven especially problematic in high-profile corruption cases, which by default are investigated by the NABU and prosecuted by the SAPO. The concentration of all key decisions in this single position has at times seriously hampered investigations.

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.

What must change 

In reality, the fix requires nothing particularly deep, as parts 1 and 2 of Article 482-2 of the Criminal Procedure Code need only be supplemented with a provision allowing the SAPO head in criminal proceedings within NABU’s investigative jurisdiction to: 

• Submit to the URPI information that may indicate the commission of a criminal offense by an Ukrainian MP;
• Approve applications for authorization of detention, selection of a preventive measure in the form of remand in custody or house arrest, search, breaching the secrecy of correspondence, telephone calls, telegraph and other communications, as well as applications regarding other measures, including covert investigative measures.

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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.