Questionable forensic examinations and efficiency problems: the public criticized the work of detectives at a meeting with international NABU auditors

Anti-corruption activists and lawyers expressed concern about the effectiveness of investigations and transparency of the NABU's work at a meeting with the bureau's international auditors. Among the key issues are weak internal control, questionable forensic examinations, and a decrease in the number of investigations by detectives against current top officials compared to former officials. Volodymyr Bohatyr, a lawyer, Honored Lawyer of Ukraine, told about this in an exclusive commentary to UNN.

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An external independent audit of the NABU finally began on October 3. The international experts who will be reviewing the work of the detectives held a closed meeting in Kyiv with representatives of civil society organizations and other civil society representatives working in the field of preventing and fighting corruption to hear from them about the problems in the NABU .

Following the meeting, attorney Volodymyr Bohatyr said that the auditors showed a genuine professional interest in the recommendations of the panelists. According to him, these recommendations mainly concerned the development of a clear methodology and criteria for assessing the effectiveness of the NABU, taking into account international experience and the specifics of the Ukrainian context.

The participants discussed issues related to the effectiveness of investigations, improvement of internal control and transparency in the NABU, lack of results of internal investigations, public control, methodology of interaction between the NABU and the SAPO, problems of forensic examinations conducted by the NABU, expediency and possibility of having departmental "experts", recommendations for reorganization of NABU units, balance between public interest and confidentiality of investigations, significant reduction in the number of investigations against current top officials compared to the former ones

He said that he also raised the issue of the reliability of declarations, because some detectives had false information in their declarations, but neither internal control nor the NACP acted. 

"The problems of forensic examination are related to the fact that recently there have been some people posing as experts from the NABU. In fact, they are trying to create a departmental expertise. The third is the submission of documents to the court, such as inspection reports, which are different in content. There are problems with the evidence submitted to the court by NABU as a body," explained Volodymyr Bogatyr.

In his opinion, the meeting was extremely constructive, and the auditors plan to develop criteria and methodology for assessing the NABU in the coming weeks in order to conduct the audit by the end of February. The members of the commission demonstrated openness to the public's suggestions and promised to take them into account in their future work.

"Certainly, given the professional experience of the Commission members, it is difficult to expect anything more from them than an audit, and they openly emphasize this. The NABU audit itself can identify and state challenges, and the work on improving the legislation should be carried out by the parliament," the lawyer added.

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Recently, the public has raised many questions about the work of NABU detectives . In particular, there are frequent statements about the loss of independence of anti-corruption bodies in Ukraine. This was stated, among other things, by the recently dismissed First Deputy Director of the Bureau Gizo Uglava. He has repeatedly hinted that decisions at the NABU are made under the influence of external factors, not on the basis of the law. Among the individuals and institutions that he believes exerted this pressure were activists of the Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC) and the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy, who, as Uglava noted, used to work at the AntAC.

Uglava has repeatedly emphasized that the actions against him indicate serious problems in the NABU investigation process, which is focused on achieving external goals rather than establishing the truth.

The same opinion is supported by lawyerswho also stated that the real goal of anti-corruption activists has turned from fighting corruption to putting pressure on certain public officials to achieve "external" goals.

In addition, the lawyer community is sounding the alarm over the idea of NABU Director Semen Kryvonos to create his own forensic expertise at the bureau, because "their" experts in the investigation have nothing to do with an independent investigation.