The Rada will vote to eliminate the independence of the NABU and SAP

The Verkhovna Rada will hold a vote on the whole on draft law No. 12414, which will effectively liquidate the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. This was announced... reported / announced / notified / informed / said Member of Parliament Yaroslav Zheleznyak (the "Golos" faction), head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy Anastasia Radina (the Servant of the People faction") and "Mirror Weekly".

According to Radina, on July 22, amendments were added to draft law No. 12414 "On Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code" that "make the SAP a decorative institution and provide for the complete dependence of the activities of the NABU and SAP on the will of the Prosecutor General."

"As expected, yesterday's searches involving physical violence and suspicions against NABU employees became the backdrop for a full-scale attack on NABU and SAP," she wrote.

In particular, according to her, the amendments to the draft law grant the Prosecutor General the following powers:

← to be the de facto head of the SAP (Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office) and to delegate the powers of the SAP prosecutor to other prosecutors;

← to provide the NABU with binding written instructions and to request materials from any cases;

← to reassign cases to any prosecutors;

← to reassign the investigation of cases that fall under the jurisdiction of the NABU to other authorities.

"If these changes are voted in, Ukraine's anti-corruption infrastructure will be virtually destroyed," she said.

Radina urged members of parliament not to support the initiative, calling the consequences of adopting the bill for the state "catastrophic".

Bill No. 12414 "On Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine Regarding the Specifics of Pre-trial Investigation of Criminal Offenses Related to the Disappearance of Persons Under Special Circumstances During Martial Law" was registered in the Verkhovna Rada on January 16.

The initiators of the bill are members of parliament Maksym Pavliuk, Vyacheslav Medyanik, Oleksandr Bakumov, and Serhiy Min'ko.

On April 29, the draft law passed its first reading and was adopted in principle.

UPDATED AT 12:00. NABU and SAP also named amendments to draft law No. 12414 are such that they "effectively destroy the independence of the SAP and subordinate the activities of the NABU and SAP to the Prosecutor General".

"In fact, if this bill is passed, the head of the SAP will become a nominal figure, and the NABU will lose its independence and turn into a subdivision of the General Prosecutor's Office. The anti-corruption infrastructure of Ukraine, built since 2015 together with international partners, will be destroyed," reads the statement from the NABU and SAP.

They urged members of parliament to refrain from voting on a measure that could "finally destroy the independence of the anti-corruption system in Ukraine."

• On the morning of July 21, the SBU and the Office of the Prosecutor General began... "a special operation to neutralize Russian influence on NABU"One of the heads of NABU detectives detained on suspicion of conducting business in the Russian FederationAlso. an employee of the central office of the agency has been detainedwho, according to the investigation, spied for Moscow. Regarding one of the defendants, NABU stated that Earlier, an SBU investigation found no evidence of his cooperation with a former Ukrainian official who had sided with the occupiers..
• In total, NABU reported 70 searches at the homes of at least 15 of its employees. Simultaneously with the SBU and the State Prosecutor's Office, the State Bureau of Investigations served three notices of suspicion to NABU employees.for being involved in accidents in 2021 and 2023.
• Simultaneously, the SBU conducted... an inspection of the enforcement of the law on state secrets in the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPC)The latter stated that the SBU had gained access to information about all covert and operational measures, as well as special operations that the SAP conducts with the NABU. The Security Service denied this information and stated that "the inspection does not involve familiarizing oneself with the content of such documents as a whole."
• The executive director of the Center for Combating Corruption, Kalenyuk, stated LIGA.net, that large-scale searches of NABU employees are"revenge" by the country's leadership for the investigation into close friends and associates of President Zelensky..