Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has already signed a bill that reduces the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).

This was started bt MPs Yaroslav Zheleznyak and Oleksiy Honcharenko.

“According to several of my sources, the president has already signed today’s adopted bill No. 12414, which effectively abolishes NABU and SAPO. Game over,” Zheleznyak wrote.

Earlier, NV sources reported that Zelensky plans to sign the bill limiting the powers of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau even before receiving an official response from the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

According to them, the content of the letter should include a request to postpone or veto the bill.

Sources indicated that the President’s Office does not expect any positive signals from the European Union; however, Zelensky intends to complete the signing procedure quickly. It is expected that von der Leyen will send a personal letter to the head of the Ukrainian state shortly.

On July 22, the Verkhovna Rada voted in favor of bill No. 12414, which was previously criticized by Transparency International as an attempt to deprive NABU and SAPO of their independence.

The bill, the text of which was exclusively obtained by Radio NV, introduces additional amendments to the draft changes in the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The innovations concern the activities of NABU and SAPO and, according to critics of the document, limit the independence of these bodies. The amendments were proposed by MP Maksym Buzhanskyi (Servant of the People).

Transparency International Ukraine stated that the bill could destroy key guarantees of independence for NABU and SAPO.

In particular, the amendments to the bill grant the Prosecutor General the powers to:

Take cases away from NABU and assign investigations to other bodies;

Act as the de facto head of SAPO and delegate SAPO prosecutor powers to other prosecutors;

Issue mandatory written instructions to NABU detectives;

Independently close cases involving suspicions against top officials.

The procedural autonomy of SAPO is also significantly limited because:

SAPO prosecutors will lose the ability to determine NABU’s jurisdiction in exceptional cases;

The head of SAPO will not be able to resolve disputes regarding jurisdiction in cases that NABU can investigate;

The head of SAPO will have no authority to amend appellate and cassation appeals filed by SAPO prosecutors.

They argue that the bill seriously violates Article 116 of the Verkhovna Rada’s Rules of Procedure, as it fundamentally changes the scope of regulation of bill No. 12414.

European Commission spokesperson Guillaume Mercier stated that the EU is concerned about Ukraine’s recent actions regarding NABU and SAPO.

Verkhovna Rada Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk signed bill No. 12414, which limits the independence of NABU and SAPO, and sent it to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for signing.

Meanwhile, military medic from the “Ulf” medical service, Dmytro Koziatynskyi, called on concerned citizens to gather for a rally in Kyiv “to defend what we have built over the past decade.”

“Members of Parliament have decided that NABU and SAPO should be subordinated to the Prosecutor General. So take cardboard from boxes and make posters where you write everything you think about the recent assault on the anti-corruption system. Petitions have already been launched to the President demanding he veto this nonsense. But while these petitions are being approved, he could sign the bill. So we have no time. We need to go out today and demand that Zelensky prevent a return to the Yanukovych era. See you this evening,” he wrote.

EMPR