New anti-corruption law better than its predecessor

Latest public opinion surveys carried out by the Razumkov Centre make it clear that the public feel the need to fight bribe-taking and crimes by public officials. According to these surveys, one in three Ukrainians is convinced that over the next three years the level of political corruption will increase. This is at a time when in the Transparency International Corruption Index Ukraine’s rating is speeding downwards.

According to the Director of Political-Legal Programmes for the Razumkov Centre, Yury Yakymenko, “The basic package of documents on fighting corruption has already been adopted and should come into force from January 2010. These laws are longstanding commitments to European institutions. The previous draft laws can be considered morally obsolete: there was nothing about the President’s responsibility for this phenomenon, and the declarations did not take into account the article on expenditure which must by definition be under supervision. For example, in the old law there was no such concept as conflict of interests, and the main innovations will to a considerable measure be focused on creating preventive measures for fighting corruption. At present nothing can prevent the adoption of these documents, unless somebody decides to lodge a submission to the Constitutional Court, but that is unlikely. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe which has promised help in implementing the draft laws would not allow that.”