It is important to set up the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine as soon as possible in order to ensure proper consideration of proceedings that were opened as a result of the effort of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. This was stated by Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations at a press conference in Ukraine Crisis Media Center, following a meeting with Artem Sytnyk, head of the National Anti-Сorruption Bureau of Ukraine. “It’s essential to quickly establish the High Anti-Corruption Court so that NABU cases can be dealt with swiftly, fairly and effectively. Corrupt officials must be punished. This is what people expect and this is what also what I would say the international community is expecting,” Johannes Hahn said.
Johannes Hahn noted that the NABU showed “excellent work and excellent results, despite well known strong pressure”.
The European Commissioner also stressed the need to take measures to restore confidence in all existing anti-corruption bodies. “I’m very concerned about the loss of credibility of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, who was found to have seriously violated the rules […] I would urge Ukrainian authorities to take the necessary measures to re-establish credibility [to this institution],” Johannes Hahn remarked.
Head of the NABU Artem Sytnyk expressed the hope that the participation of Western experts in the formation of the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine will guarantee professionalism and independence of the new court. “I hope, with the support and monitoring from our American and European colleagues, this institution will be truly independent and cases that are already in courts will be considered by an independent professional court and decisions will be made based on societal expectations. […] Now, we have come close to making the anti-corruption reform irreversible. And the irreversibility of the reform will begin after an independent professional anti-corruption court will start making just and fair judgments on the cases we investigate,” Artem Sytnyk said.