Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada discusses possible candidates for post of Prosecutor General
The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada is discussing the possibility of appointing the Head of the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko, former Minister of Internal Affairs, Yuriy Lutsenko, and the Head of the Donetsk Regional Military and Civil Administration, Pavel Zhebrivskyi, to the post of Prosecutor General. This was said by the Head of the Anti-Corruption Committee from the Samopomich party, Yegor Sobolev, according to Ukrainian online news portal GORDON.
"I've heard from members of the Committee on the legislative support of law enforcement, who usually monitor such appointments, that, supposedly, they were asked how they would react to the candidacy of Yuriy Lutsenko and Pavel Zhebrivskyi. But I personally believe that the Prosecutor General's responsibility should be jailing the president's friends and not being one. He should be no one's friend and no one's enemy," he stated.
Sobolev said that his committee has developed an amendment to the procedure for the appointment of the Prosecutor General. These changes propose to elect him through competition, so that "neither the president nor parliament, or anyone else, could appoint his puppet prosecutor."
"In any case, it's better to seek a candidate outside of the Prosecutor General's Office, where everyone has been "devoured by corruption," the MP said.
On February 16th, President Petro Poroshenko asked the Prosecutor General, Victor Shokin, to resign. On February 19, the president’s spokesman, Svyatoslav Tsegolko, said that Shokin had handed in his resignation.
MP Yuriy Lutsenko said that he has not received a formal proposal for the position of Prosecutor General of Ukraine, and that it is not possible because he does not have any legal education.