Filaret and Uniates support artistes in the fight against corruption

“Ocean of Elza” leader Sviatosalv Vakarchuk met with President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and handed over a letter to him on the necessity to set up a fully-valued system of independent anticorruption courts. It is reported by News24ua.

The document was signed by chief of the Kiev Patriarchate Filaret (Denisenko), Primate of the UGCC Sviatoslav (Shevchuk), actress Ada Rogovtseva and poet Sergey Zhadan.

“Being signatoriesof the letter hereof, we insist that a fully-valued system of independent anticorruption courts be established as a matter of emergency, not only the Supreme Anticorruption Court, prescribed by the Law of Ukraine “On the Judiciary and Status of Judges”. The above courts ought to consider anticorruption cases in substance, give their consent to carry out respective investigation procedures upon the request of the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and Specialized Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office,” the text states.

Public activists note that any reforms, which are not underpinned by the systemic fight against corruption, are doomed to failure.

“We urge you to immediately initiate the process of establishing a due system of specialized anticorruption courts. We propose to set up an ad hoc competition committee to select candidacies for the positions of anticorruption judges similarly to holding a vacancy filling competition for the NABU director. We believe it necessary to include foreign experts with impeccable international reputation into the competition commission,” add the public activists.

"A striking difference between an official and real incomes of civil servants and Parliamentarians, revealed during the submissions of e-declarations, as well as numerous corruption scandals prove the urgent need to form an independent anticorruption court,” stresses the letter.

The document was given to the President by Mr. Vakarchuk on December 13 in the evening.