The newly appointed official explains the department’s priority tasks and the role of the civil society in their implementation.
Anastasia Zadorozhnia, former staff member of the Lustration Department at the Ministry of Justice was selected department director based on results of the third round of the competition. Previous two rounds failed to result in an appointment by the commission. Last week the setup of the Civic Lustration Council with the Ministry of Justice was finalized. It is to help detect the cases when lustration provisions are violated and address them. “In my working activities, I will be making efforts to further implement the provisions of the law on purification of authorities together with the team of the Lustration department and with the members of the newly established civic council,” said Anastasia Zadorozhna, Head of the Department for lustration, at a press-briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center.
“We now have our department formed and hope to get the support of the civil society members who make part of the lustration council. We will keep monitoring to make sure that the Law on purification of authorities is further implemented according to its provisions,” added Serhii Petukhov, Deputy Minister of Justice on European integration.
Head of the Lustration Department said that respective registry currently contains the information on 935 persons. “Department’s priority work direction is the court cases that are over 50, all the information pertinent to these cases can be found on the web site of the Ministry of Justice in the section ‘Purification of authorities’. We are also monitoring the changes to legal acts in order to detect and remove possible collisions,” she added. The Ministry of Justice and the Lustration Department introduced about 70 claims relating to dismissal of judges.
Members of the newly established Civic Council include Yurii Sereda (Institute Respublica NGO), Kateryna Butko (Automaidan, ProSud /about the court/ project), Oksana Borysenko (Svidomo /consciously/ civic service NGO), Volodymyr Tymofiychuk (Center for civic freedoms NGO) and Yevheniia Motorevska (Slidstvo.Info, member of the Civic integrity council).
“The Law on purification of authorities was a tiny yet considerable step that has demonstrated that civic platforms and requests of the society may actually bring the result. Next target is to fix and maintain the achievements as retaliation is still possible. […] It may come from the Constitutional Court that has been considering provisions of the Law for two years instead of one month. It may also come from the MPs who are not interested in lustration pre se. The only hope is with civic platforms and active civil society because it’s their influence that is capable of forcing the authorities to change,” emphasized Tetiana Kozachenko, secretary of the Civic Council.
