«Having joined forces with other parties, we submitted to Parliament a draft law on the formation of the Supreme Anti-corruption Court of Ukraine. We ask for the EU’s and USA’s assistance in the selection of judges thereof. Creation of at least one independent Ukrainian court will bring the top-rank kleptocrats to justice and prove the effectiveness of the evolutionary path of development of Ukraine to the nation».

The following is the latest news for January 2017.

POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

The veterans of the war with Russia began to block the railway to the occupied territories. This trade route (of which the abovementioned railway is an essential artery) functions with the special permission of the Security Service of Ukraine and is stimulated by the blown-out prices difference, justified by the war, and the absence of effective customs controls. Several thousands train cars cross the battlefront line on the daily without thorough inspections. Meanwhile, aggravated fights with the use of multiple rocket launchers, artillery and tanks miraculously almost never affect the movement of goods. The railway, blocked by the veterans, is one of three major railroads in the Luhansk region and one of five in Donetsk. In Avdiivka, mere two dozen kilometers away from the last blocking stand, a fight erupted on 27-30th January for control over an important highway.

Poroshenko’s confectionery company Roshen announced that it will close its factory in Russia. President doing business in the country that attacked his homeland has caused a flurry of criticism in Ukraine over the last two years. During the presidential campaign, which unfolded after Russia's annexation of Crimea and attack on Donbas, Poroshenko swore to sell his business overall, including the TV news "Channel 5", but did not keep this promise. Instead, in January it was reported that another TV channel, NewsOne, was headed by the protege of one of the key allies of the President, Igor Kononenko.

Former Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili, who in late 2016 resigned as Head of the State Administration of Odessa region and joined the opposition to the president, actively tours large villages and small towns of Ukraine. One of the key ideas of Saakashvili, early parliamentary elections, will grant a chance to the new political power "Rukh novuh sul" (Movement of new forces) that he builds up. "Batkivschyna" of Yulia Tymoshenko and the "Opposition bloc" also campaign for the snap election of the parliament in hopes of increasing their factions in Verkhovna Rada. However, the President who lords over the largest faction in the Rada today and successfully used it to prop his associates in the positions of Prime Minister, Prosecutor General and Head of the Security Service, has scarcely any motives to trigger early elections.

Volodymyr Groisman's Government has at last registered the National Public Television and Radio Company of Ukraine as a Public Joint Stock Company. This is a necessary step in order to transform the post-Soviet state television into a public broadcaster. Next step: open selection process of the first CEO of public channel.

HIGH LEVEL CORRUPTION CASES

The Anti-Corruption Bureau conducted searches and arrests on the cases that lead to persons connected to the former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and pro-Russian oligarch Dmytro Firtash. Also, detectives of the Bureau caught red-handed two bribe-accepting judges and began to investigate violations of the Law on declaration of assets by another two members of Parliament.

Prosecutor General's Office accused Oleksandr Yefremov, the leader of the Party of Regions faction in the previous Parliament, of state treason and indicted the then-President Viktor Yanukovych of the same crime. The suspicion of high treason is based on Yanukovych's appeals to Russian President Vladimir Putin to send troops to Ukraine after the former's fleeing to Russia.

REFORM OF PROSECUTORS OFFICE AND THE JUDICIARY

The High Council of Justice issued a highly controversial explanation to the judges that they cannot be arrested without the Council's consent, even when they were detained at the crime scene. The Anti-Corruption Bureau and a number of lawyers protested against such an interpretation of the Constitution. However, one judge was freed by the court already after detention by the Anti-Corruption Bureau's detectives in the bribery case. The court made referrals to the aforementioned opinion of the High Council of Justice.

OPEN REGISTERS OF PROPERTY AND ASSET DECLARATIONS

The National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption has not started checking any of the asset declarations of state officials since they were published in September and October of 2016. Quite vexatiously, the Agency has failed to adopt rules for such inspections, even though our parliamentary committee in cooperation with the anti-corruption NGOs has developed three separate drafts of such rules for the Agency. The real reason behind this tarrying is the reluctance of people appointed by the President and by former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to do their work, as this may lead to exposure of violations of the law by their patrons.

The agency even tried to refuse full access to declarations to the Anti-Corruption Bureau, but backed down under pressure. In fact, only the Bureau and Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office are currently dealing with investigations of violations of the legislation on declarations. Another hope are the investigative journalists and active citizens who now have unlimited access via the Internet to registries of ownership of real estate, land and cars.

OPEN DATA ON PUBLIC SPENDING

Adopted in 2015, the Law on transparency in use of public funds, which requires publication of all payments from taxpayers' money on a specific web-portal, is currently observed by dissatisfactory 47% of budget fund allocators. Most eager to publish this information are the Ministry of Defense (31,000 thousand records available on the portal), Ministry of Internal Affairs (1.4 thousand records), Ministry of Justice (1.3 thousand).

The most active users of the web-portal, checking this information about taxpayers' money are located in Kyiv - 34% of all unique users.

LUSTRATION AND REFORM OF STATE SERVICE

The Ministry of Justice failed to select the candidate for the position of the Head of lustration department in replacement of Tetiana Kozachenko, who left two years after the Law on lustration entered into force. This demonstrates the reluctance of professional lawyers to venture into public service in given dire conditions of low wages and lack of will of the country's leaders to purify the state machine.

Head of the Parliament Andriy Parubiy persistently refuses to put to the vote the draft law that we have drawn up in the spring of 2015, that incorporates recommendations of the Venice Commission on lustration legislation. Nothing has changed even after the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe drew attention to the lack of necessary progress in a special resolutionon Ukraine. The draft law also obligates the candidates in the forthcoming elections of the President and Parliament to inform electorate whether they meet the requirements of the law on lustration.

TAX REDUCTION, DECENTRALIZATION AND DEREGULATION

367 communities merged in Ukraine on the scope that makes them viable and increases their financial autonomy. Most such communities are located in Ternopil (36), Dnipro (34) and Zhytomyr (32) regions.