Ukrainian Prosecutor General to secretly check whether prosecutors live on salary

The Justice Ministry of Ukraine has registered the order of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine on the procedure for secret checking the integrity of prosecutors and investigators. For a start, they need to fill out a questionnaire about the correspondence between their living conditions and the declared income. Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko gave them 30 days for that.

The filled out questionnaires will be posted on the official website of the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO), Express newspaper reports.

“The prosecutors and investigators will be checked by the PGO’s internal security department, but that does not mean that only they will carry out the inspection. Everyone will be able to see the completed questionnaires and inform the internal security department of the non-compliance of these data,” Oleksandr Banchuk, the expert of the Center for Political and Legal Reforms, said.

For example, a prosecutor points out in his tax return that he has an apartment with an area of 60 square meters. However, he actually lives in a big house. This fact can be the basis for official verification or investigation. The internal security department will process the information from all the sources.

“This is an additional mechanism for cleansing the prosecutor’s office. If there is a will, it can be effective. One way or another, but I believe that cleansing of the prosecutor’s office must take place not through the detection of violations and subsequent dismissal. It would be more expedient (which has been promised by the prosecutor General) to announce a competition for positions at all levels and to recruit new people. If the old staff do not suit, it would automatically mean their dismissal,” Banchuk concluded.