Corruption on Ukraine

In accordance with recommendations of the GRECO Group (a group of states against corruption) Ukraine has to develop immediately a detailed plan of acts aimed at the realization of the national anti-corruption strategy. The plan of acts must as far as it is possible take into account a possible cooperation and assistance of the international community. At the same time a number of phenomena are observed in Ukraine, that prevent the realization of the global initiatives of the President of Ukraine Viktor Yuschenko, aimed at decreasing the level of corruption in the governmental sector of the country. The main aspects that worsen the problem of corruption in Ukraine are as follows: insufficient maturity of the civil society democratic institutions that are insufficiently developed and unable to control the activities of the representative and executive authorities; the non-government organizations declaring their anti-corruption purposes (approximately 200 of them are operating in Ukraine) have no real influence on the situation; the country lacks political and social traditions of a public exposure of corrupt officials; the publication of facts of the corruption in the mass media does not always have an adequate response of the public the law-enforcement authorities and first of all judicial authorities. The procedure of punishment for corruptive acts provided for in the Corruption Fighting Law of Ukraine has not become an efficient means of fighting this phenomenon and provides only an administrative liability. According to the opinion of domestic and national experts this Law does not meet the international standards and contributes to the formation of a negative image of Ukraine as a state that does not have adequate legal mechanisms and a political will to fight the corruption. It is suggested in the recommendations given on the basis of the results of monitoring carried out in 2007 that Ukraine should revise the system of the administrative liability for the corruption in order to establish a clear practice of treating cases related to the commitment of corruptive infringements as criminal offences. The work performed in order to execute the Agreement of Implementation of a Threshold Program of Challenges of Millennium Corporation Intended for the Decrease of the Corruption Level in Ukraine signed by the Governments of Ukraine and the USA in December 2006 and the joint project of the Council of Europe and Ukraine entitled 'Anti-Corruption Project in Ukraine' (a project of UPAC) is insufficiently efficient. The obligations of Ukraine under the said projects provide for a number of measures: the strengthening of the civil society functions related to the tracing and exposure of corruption in the governmental organizations, reforms in the sphere of legal procedure, improvement of the application of the ethic and administrative standards and public control of the execution thereof, improvement of the efficiency of application of the corruption fighting standards and procedures in the system of higher education.