Verkhovna Rada committee has backed bill that will allow pressure to be exerted on media, – Shabunin
A Verkhovna Rada committee has backed Bill No. 16026, which effectively restores the prosecution service’s general oversight powers and allows prosecutors to demand documents and explanations from the media and the business sector without opening criminal proceedings or obtaining a court order.
This was announced by Vitalii Shabunin, chairman of the board of the Centre for Combating Corruption (CCC), according to Censor.NET.
Details
"Zelenskyy’s MPs want to bring back the prosecutor’s office of the Yanukovych and Pshonka era: a parliamentary committee has backed the restoration of general oversight.
Zelenskyy’s MPs are granting the prosecutor’s office – whose top officials used to provide protection for call centres – the power to raid any media outlet or business. Without criminal proceedings and without the authorisation of an investigating judge.
This is draft law No. 16026. Yesterday, it was backed by the Verkhovna Rada’s Law Enforcement Committee (Ionušas, Buzhansky and others)," the report states.
How will this work?
"The media publishes an investigation into the assets of an MP, a prosecutor or an SBU officer. In response, the prosecutor puts pressure on journalists, demanding documents, contracts and internal editorial correspondence. The pretext is the use of ‘information from public sources’ in the investigation."
You run a business and have signed a contract – any contract. The prosecutor decides that it threatens ‘fundamental national interests’. Because, according to the law, this includes, in particular, ‘sustainable economic development’.
A pretext will be found: a complaint from a competitor or a post on an ‘anonymous’ Telegram channel. That’s enough," explained the head of the Centre for Political and Legal Reforms.
According to Shabunin, the prosecutor then sends a demand to provide documents and explanations.
"You have five days. Fail to comply – and you’ll face consequences. It’s impossible to appeal, because there isn’t even a case yet. Previously, to exert pressure, the security services had to at least draft a criminal case. Now, not even that is necessary.
This is called general supervision. A Soviet-era tool that Ukraine abandoned in 2016 (and which Yanukovych’s prosecutors made full use of).
They are presenting this as ‘implementing the Constitutional Court’s ruling’. Yet the Constitutional Court demanded the opposite: to LIMIT prosecutors’ interference to a minimal list of cases," he added.
Earlier, the Rada voted in favour of the draft law on reforming the Prosecutor General’s Office (No. 16144) in principle.
"No competition for the post of Prosecutor General. No vetting of current leaders: they remain in their posts and will continue to hand-pick their own staff.
This is Zelenskyy’s response to the ‘hell of Carthage’: to keep the very same people in place and give them even more power over us," Shabunin concluded.
