Editor’s Note: The following are the remarks that Ruslan Riaboshapka gave in the parliament on March 5 at the emergency session convened to consider firing him as prosecutor general. After the speech, Riaboshapka refused to stay and answer the lawmakers’ questions. Soon, 263 lawmakers voted to dismiss him.
I don’t know what the decision (on my dismissal) will be. I think I can guess it.
But I want to use this opportunity to address the people, to address every Ukrainian.
For 28 years, the Prosecutor General’s Office was a tool of pressure and political persecution. In this hall, there are people who felt it first-hand.
For 28 years, this institution had no trust from the people. For 28 years, the Prosecutor’s Office was a tool of personal enrichment for the chosen ones. The result was oligarchs in prosecutors’ costumes.
We have been carrying out a reform of the prosecutor’s office that has already gone down in history. In 28 years, the prosecutor’s office never experienced such a major clean-up and renovation.
We fired 729 prosecutors who didn’t pass the test for professionalism and propriety. Those who stayed started to value their profession twice as much — mainly because, for the first time in 28 years, they felt they were independent. They aren’t receiving any illegal orders.
The new Prosecutor’s Office has been living by the law for just three months out of its 28 years. This is why I’m now standing in this hall. This is why you’re considering firing me. It is because those whom we ousted want to return and keep living the way they lived for 28 years.
What was done in these three months? Let’s start with torture. Have you heard about law enforcement being sued for torturing our citizens? In three months, we opened 27 investigations. We held seven law enforcement officers responsible for torturing people.
Have you ever heard of anyone standing trial for illegal deforestation? Neither had I. But in the three months that our office lived by the law, we opened more than 3,000 investigations (into deforestation). We held more than 60 people accountable for it, including officials heading forestries. We passed more than 300 cases to the courts.
How many lives have been ruined by illegal gambling? This statistics doesn’t even exist. Because there is a prosecutor or a police official behind every gambling business. In the three months that our office lived by the law, we shut down more than 1,000 illegal gambling venues. It means that we saved hundreds of thousands of people’s fates.
Now, about the money stolen from Ukrainians. In the three months that our office lived by the law, we held the owners of 12 banks accountable. They stole Hr 13 billion from you and moved it to offshore countries. Almost all of those cases had been sabotaged, sold, and closed. We found this money and we know how to return it.
All of these crimes would have been impossible without corruption and without corrupt officials. Politicians want the top corrupt officials to be put in jail — it’s true. And regular people demand justice where they live and work. Their demand for justice is to stop the everyday requisitions of local feudal lords. In the three months that our office lived by the law, we opened 1,200 investigations against corrupt officials. Almost 900 are awaiting trial. Just now, we arrested a lieutenant colonel of the State Emergency Service who was taking bribes from businesses to turn a blind eye to fire safety violations. We saw consequences of crimes like this in Odesa, where many people burned to death in a fire.
For the first time in Ukraine’s history, we charged a deputy head of a regional Emergency Service for negligence that resulted in people’s death.
The demand for justice isn’t just about convictions. Our prosecutors have been returning to Ukrainians the land, forests, property and businesses that were stolen from them.
In the three months that our office lived by the law, our prosecutors returned 29 grain elevators and 10,000 hectares of land to people. We recovered Hr 5 billion for the state budget.
We didn’t drop a single case. We didn’t waste a single day of investigation. Almost every week, we’re sending new cases to the courts and are charging new people.
Now, about the war.
We started a special department to gather evidence of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and send it to international courts. We registered more than 10,000 crimes, including war crimes.
We charged 86 people for crimes linked to the war. Forty people are awaiting trial. Twenty-seven are already serving time.
One of the pains of the war is non-combat losses. Those who have been through war, including some of the people in this hall, know what it is. But no one wanted to look into it. We started a special division that works with the families of the dead to establish the truth.
Finally, the following:
The proposed decree (to fire me) is a construct of lies and manipulations. And I’m not interested in what (lawmaker Maksym) Buzhansky thinks about the reform of the prosecutor’s office. For me, the best evaluation of my work, and the best response to this decree is the letter from the father of Kateryna Gandziuk, who writes that he finally has hope that the murderers of his daughter will be punished.
I didn’t become anyone’s servant. I was, and I am independent. And an independent prosecutor can’t be forced, he can only be fired.
So I’m leaving. But I’m leaving to return.
