On 30 October, hundreds of people gathered outside Ukraine’s Constitutional Court in Kyiv. While police and National Guard units watched over the court, smoke bombs began flying into the building’s courtyard in a matter of minutes. Smoke rose to the very top of the court building, enveloping protesters holding posters with slogans against a recent decision by the court. Three days earlier, the court had decided to revoke Ukrainian citizens’s ability to monitor the income and assets of elected public officials, driving them and the authorities into an impasse - and one that could last for some time.
But let’s start at the beginning. In August this year, 47 Ukrainian MPs appealed to the Constitutional Court to consider the constitutionality of several criminal statutes. These MPs hail mostly from the Opposition Platform - For Life party, home to politician Viktor Medvedchuk (whose daughter counts Vladimir Putin as her godfather), as well as Yuri Boiko and Serhiy Lyovochkin, former members of the Party of Regions, which was turfed out of power in Ukraine’s 2014 revolution.
Two months later, the Constitutional Court made a decision to recognise Article 366-1 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code unconstitutional. This article criminalises the issuing of false asset declarations by public officials and parliamentary deputies, and can lead to imprisonment for officials. The court indicated that an anti-corruption agency independent of executive power should have oversight powers over Ukrainian judges, rather than the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), which operates under the auspices of the Ukrainian government. In other words, according to the Consitutional Court, the Ukrainian government can influence or pressure judges via its anti-corruption agencies.
