Ukraine’s Constitutional Court will consider canceling a law that bans top officials who served ex-President Viktor Yanukovych from holding government jobs, according to the court’s site.
The hearing will take place on March 3, just a day ahead of a March 4 Verkhovna Rada session that will consider a Cabinet reshuffle, including the possible dismissal of Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk. Several sources told the Kyiv Post that President Volodymyr Zelensky is considering replacing Honcharuk with Serhiy Tigipko.
Tigipko was a deputy prime minister under Yanukovych in 2010-2012, which means he is currently banned from government jobs under the lustration law on the firing of Yanukovych-era officials. The law was passed in 2014 after Yanukovych was ousted as a result of the EuroMaidan Revolution.
Honcharuk said on March 2 that he didn’t file a resignation letter, but added that he was in discussions with the president about the fate of the Cabinet. Two main candidates for his replacement, according to sources of the Kyiv Post and other Ukrainian media, are Tigipko and Denys Shmygal. Shmygal is a deputy prime minister and former top manager of an energy company belonging to oligarch Rinat Akhmetov.
Currently, the lustration law blocks Tigipko’s appointment, but the Constitutional Court may change it.
On Feb. 24, the European Court of Human Rights upheld its earlier decision that the lustration law violates dismissed officials’ rights, rejecting Ukraine’s appeal.
At least one of Zelensky’s top appointments violated the lustration law: the selection of Andriy Bohdan as Zelensky’s chief of staff in May. Bohdan resigned in February.
The Constitutional Court itself is mired in controversy.
Several of its former judges are under investigation for adopting decisions that enabled ex-President Yanukovych to monopolize power in 2010. Specifically, the Constitutional Court canceled the 2004 constitutional amendments on expanding the Verkhovna Rada’s powers and thus increased Yanukovych’s authority.
According to records in Yanukovych’s Party of Regions’ alleged off-the-book ledger, judges from the Constitutional Court received $6 million from the Party of Regions for making rulings that helped Yanukovych usurp power. They deny the accusations of wrongdoing.
In 2019 investigators prepared a notice of suspicion for one of the ex-judges of the Constitutional Court in the case. However, Prosecutor General Ruslan Riaboshapka has not yet authorized the notice of suspicion.
The Constitutional Court also dealt a blow to its reputation by canceling the law criminalizing illicit enrichment in 2019.
