Shokin fills management positions at graft-fighting agency

Mark Rachkevych

Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin chose 11 managers, all from within the law enforcement agency, who will serve under the newly appointed head of the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.

According to a watered-down version of the prosecutor’s law passed in October 2014, management positions in the graft-fighting agency require at least five years’ experience in the prosecutor’s office.

To critics of the ineffective, historically corrupt and politically subservient prosecutor's service, fresh blood is needed as part of an overhaul of the nation's criminal justice system.

The Shokin appointments include three women and nobody from Ukraine’s war-torn easternmost regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. 

Shokin chose the candidates from a narrowed list of 128 candidates that an interview panel presented to him, according to a Dec. 23 statement on the law enforcement agency’s website.

They will join Nazar Holodnytsky, the former first deputy prosecutor of Crimea, who was chosen to head the special agency on Nov. 30 following a similar competitive selection process. His direct superior is Shokin, a presidential appointee.

The special anti-corruption prosecutor’s office is supposed to supervise during pre-trial investigations that are carried out by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and represents the state during court proceedings.

Following are the positions that were filled:

First deputy head of the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, Maksym Hryshchuk. He is the only member of the management team to have served in the war. According to censor.net, he served as a volunteer in the army from Aug. 15, 2014 to Sept. 18, 2015, which included defending the Donetsk Airport as part of the 81st Airmobile Brigade. He was also short-listed to be chosen as head of the graft-fighting agency. The Ternopil Oblast native worked as a lawyer for two years starting in 2004 before becoming a prosecutorial aide in November 2008 in the city of Chervonohrad in Lviv Oblast.

Deputy head of the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, Volodymyr Kryvenko. He comes from Cherkasy Oblast in central Ukraine where he headed a department that supervised the observance of laws by the Security Service of Ukraine, State Customs Service and State Border Service.

Head of procedural management, maintenance of public prosecution and court representation of anti-corruption prosecutors, Andriy Dovhan. He comes from Lviv Oblast in western Ukraine where he was the Zolochivsky district prosecutor.

Department heads:

Lyudmyla Vyhivska will head the analytical and statistical department of the Special Prosecutor’s Office. She previously worked at the National Academy of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine in Kyiv as an associate professor.

Serhiy Kozachyna will head the sixth procedural management department. He comes from Mykolayiv Oblast in southern Ukraine where he monitored the observance of laws during pre-trial investigations. Previously, he was the deputy prosecutor of the Lenin district of Mykolayiv.

Maksym Kravchenko will head the second procedural management department. He comes from Zaporizhya Oblast in southern Ukraine where he monitored the observance laws by Interior Ministry officials during pretrial and criminal investigations. He joined the agency in 2005 starting out as a prosecutorial aide in Berdyansk. He also was short-listed to head the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office among 14 other people.

Vasyl Krychun will head the third procedural management department. He comes from Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast in western Ukraine where in 2002 he first started as a prosecutorial aide in the city of Kolomyia. In 2013 he was promoted to a post in Kyiv.

Olena Myrko will head the documentary securing department. She comes from Poltava Oblast in central Ukraine where she monitored the observance of laws by Interior Ministry officials during pre-trial investigations.

Oleksandr Omelchenko will head the first procedural management department. He was the Ivanivsky inter-district prosecutor in Kyiv Oblast.

Roman Symkiv will head the fourth procedural management department. In May 2014 he was appointed prosecutor of Dubrovytsky district in Rivne Oblast.

Olha Yarova will head the fifth procedural management department. She hails from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in southeastern Ukraine where she was the deputy department head of the prosecutor’s office. She was a lawyer for anti-drugs charity in Dnipropetrovsk in 2003-2004 before starting her career as a district prosecutorial aide, a title she held in June 2004-December 2011.

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