Cleaning in Ukrainian

Maidan has achieved the fulfillment of one of his requirements: the law on lustration has been adopted in Ukraine

How the law was adopted and who has to go through the audit - in the report of The New Times from Kyiv

People's Deputy Vitaly Zhuravsky collided with the crowd exactly at the moment when he left the parliament building. Activists recognized him and put him in the garbage tank /photo: from the personal page of Facebook Vitaly Mananko

On September 16, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the law “On the purification of power” - on the third attempt. A few votes were constantly lacked to make a decision. After the document was adopted in the second reading, the speaker Alexander Turchinov made an attempt to immediately vote for the adoption of the law as a whole. On the scoreboard, 225 votes “For” were displayed. One voice was not enough.

“Colleagues, who has a hand trembling? Who has a hand tremble! - the speaker was worried. - Call everyone into the hall. Colleagues, do not diverge until we make a decision. I want to say, dear friends, this is not intimidation, this is an argument - all who voted, we will print and those who did not vote, we will also print and we will inform you and give this position. ”

Meanwhile, people gathered at the walls of parliament. They grabbed tires with them, which in the late afternoon and fused. So parliamentarians reminded of the Maidan. “Grushevsky Street was blocked by Ukrainian patriots with tires and weapons,” the parliamentarians warned deputy Nikolai Katerinchuk (“Fatherland”). “And if this bill is not voted, I’m afraid that then there will be a completely different argument.”

To this, the speaker Turchinov noticed that it was not necessary to be afraid of tires and weapons, but to turn to our own conscience and "not to vote out of fear, but because of a sense of responsibility for their own country."

Red flags

There were not enough votes for objective reasons - the Communists and most representatives of the "Party of Regions" left the hall. And they could be understood. The fact is that the law lists organizations, which belongs to which in the past will automatically not allow posts in the new government. Among those who fall under the ban - officials who, until August 19, 1991, who worked in senior positions (level of district committee and above) of the CPSU, the Komsomol, the Communist Party of Ukraine, the LKSMU* or other union republics, members of the CPSU Central Committee, those who worked as a full -time employee or unspoken agent of the USSR and its units in the republics of the USSR and, in particular, in his fifth fifth of his fifth. Management (ideological counterintelligence - the fight against dissent and "ideological sabotage"). Even graduates of higher educational institutions of the KGB of the USSR, however, with the exception of technical specialists, will not be able to undergo a “cleansing” audit.

The "Party of Regions" had their own renections to resist lustration. The category “Verification subjects that have not underwent verification” include everyone who “held a position from February 25, 2010 to February 22, 2014”, that is, starting from the date of Viktor Yanukovych’s entry into the post of President of Ukraine and before his flight from the country. The list is headed by the fugitive itself and it ends with officials, in respect of whom the court found that they prevented the protest shares since November 21, 2013 - the day when Euromaidan started.

“I ask you, do not lust the professional people who worked in the Yanukovych government and now hold positions. This is a military prosecutor who worked in the administration of President Yanukovych, these are the Minister of Economics, other ministers. I ask you - these are professional people, do not lust them, ”Anna Herman, People's Deputy, begged parliamentarians, and in the past one of the closest associates of Viktor Yanukovych and, as her opponents say (in particular, on the pages of Ukrainian Pravda), a secret employee of the Soviet KGB, nicknamed Teresa.

However, this is the meaning of lustration: people who collaborate with the criminal regime cannot work in the new government. Actually, this is stated in the first lines of the explanatory note to the bill: "The introduction of the lustration (cleansing) mechanism of power is one of the ways of consolidating society and overcoming the negative consequences of the authoritarian regime of the former government."

The result of the discussion in the Rada was summed up by deputy Vitaly Zhuravsky. In the election, he was supported by the “Party of Regions”, but after the revolution he, like many of the “regionals”, left the faction and is now part of the “Economic Development” group: “Dear colleagues, if we do not vote for this law, and this law gives us a civilized way to change power, then the crowd will speak. It is much worse and worse. ”

Ironically, Vitaly Zhuravsky collided with the crowd exactly at the moment when he left the parliament building. Activists recognized him and put him in a garbage tank, which expressed their attitude to the "Party of Regions."

Behind the scenes

The preparation of the law was difficult. The opposition was boycotted and thereby did not allow the authorities to conduct full discussions of the amendments made by the deputies after the adoption of the document in the first reading. The second reading of these amendments gained 400. Parliamentarians were able to see them only before voting. 36 minutes before the adoption of the law as a whole, the deputy head of the Fatherland faction Sergey Pashinsky, urging the deputies to vote for the law, actually asked him to take his word. “I am a categorical opponent of populism and election legislative initiatives,” he said. - But I had the opportunity to cooperate with the working group, and I know the ups and downs of the adoption of this law. I know why he is still not in the hall. There is already a table, it is now being published, there are a lot of answers, ”the deputy explained. -This law will make it possible to calmly, in a European manner to clear power and carry out lustration, which has ripened. I ask you to support and assure you that there is no longer any populism, no “wild” things that were in the first reading, there is no longer there, he is completely subtracted and ready to accept. ”

How many "wild" things are excluded, still have to find out. But the fact that they were is undoubted. Take, for example, a list of documents submitted by an official or applicant of the post in the authorities. In the initial version, in addition to written consent to conduct an audit, autobiography, copies of an identity document, the candidate was supposed to provide a “declaration of property, on income, spending and financial obligations regarding himself and her husband, wife, father, mother, stepfather, stepmother, son, daughter, soldier, lifetime, dear brother, brother, dear brother, dear brother, dear brother, brother Native sister, grandfather, grandmother, great -grandfather, great -grandmother, grandson, granddaughter, great -great -grandson, great -granddaughter, adoptive parents or adopted, guardian or guardianship, as well as people who live jointly, are connected by joint rights and obligations with the subject of the audit, including persons who live together, but are not married). "

In the final version, one of the authors of the bill Yuri Derevyanko said (it is not included in any fraction), the list of those whose level of welfare will be checked is minimized: “All the norms that relate to the so -called unlimited circle of close people have narrowed clearly to those people who live with each of us.”

The list of those who fall under lustration is also reduced. People’s deputies are excluded from the list and in general everyone who claims to be elected positions, say, the chairman of the city or regional council. As the head of the chandelier committee explained the New Times (he was established during the Maidan and is now engaged in the development of specialized legislation) Yegor Sobolev, “this law will affect only those who are appointed - judges, prosecutors, sbushnikov (security officers of Ukraine. - The New Times), policemen, and officials - to the level of the Minister”.

In addition, the process of making a final decision became more democratic: it was originally planned that after checking a person, they simply informed about the decision. Now, according to Derevyanko, the results of the audit will be sent to the applicant, and he will be able to give his explanations, and only taking into account this will be made a final decision.

Rules of purge

The mechanism of lustration is approximately this: the head of the department draws up a plan for checking his subordinates and sends it to the National Agency for Public Service. The agency experts, together with the tax authorities, study the cases of full -time employees on several points: the reliability of information about property, income and expenses that were completed three years before the audit (similar data from loved ones are also checked); holding accountable for corruption; The presence in the list of persons who do not have the right to occupy their positions. One nuance: it is impossible to refuse - in this case, the name is automatically related to the number of those who have not passed and cannot apply for a position.

The inspectors themselves are also checked - for this a special commission is created, which includes one representative of a public organization and one journalist. The head of the auditing commission is assigned to the post for only one year - reassignment is not provided.

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About 1 million all kinds of officials, civil servants, law enforcement officers fall under the scope of this law

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About the upcoming check of the official will be warned 10 days before it starts. The test period is not more than 45 days. Not passed the audit quit and - most importantly - are deprived of the right to occupy positions in the authorities for the next 10 years. “According to our estimates, about 1 million all kinds of officials, civil servants, law enforcement officers fall under the action of this law,” Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said last Wednesday.

Lustration will begin from the Ministry of Justice, which will control the lustration of other authorities. And the Ministry of Justice should follow a special public body from journalists and activists - its creation is provided for by law. “A person with a good education, experience in legal business and without experience in the public sector,” Yegor Sobolev sees the ideal Ukrainian official.

However, unnecessary illusions are the activists of the Maidan (and Sobolev - one of them) do not build: “The law is a weapon to cleanse power. But it is important to use this weapon correctly. The adoption of the law is half a step towards the fulfillment of the Euromaidan demand for lustration of power. The next half is to fulfill the law. And do not wait for the current leaders of the country to rush to fulfill it. Society must force them, ”said Sobolev.