By Yuliia Dysa, Max Hunder
KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine’s Prosecutor Common Andriy Kostin stated on Tuesday he had resigned to take accountability for a scandal by which dozens of officers are alleged to have abused their place to obtain incapacity standing and keep away from navy service.
Kostin’s resignation adopted a gathering of the nationwide safety and defence council, the place officers mentioned methods to crack down on corruption and on loopholes getting used to get draft deferrals.
It was not instantly clear whether or not Kostin’s resignation would have an effect on Ukraine’s efforts to carry Russia accountable for its invasion and the following struggle crimes of which Kyiv, its allies and the Worldwide Legal Court docket accuse Moscow.
Kostin’s workplace has lately been rocked by allegations that dozens of native officers, together with prosecutors, allegedly misused their positions to acquire incapacity standing.
“The Prosecutor General must take political responsibility for the situation in the prosecution bodies of Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote in a strongly worded assertion printed on social media after the council assembly.
Kostin’s resignation assertion adopted minutes later. The prosecutor referred to as the state of affairs across the false incapacity diagnoses “clearly amoral” and agreed with Zelenskiy in regards to the want for private accountability.
“In this situation, I believe it is right to announce my resignation from the position of Prosecutor General.”
PUBLIC IRE
The prosecutor’s workplace confronted the brunt of public ire from the scandal after a Ukrainian journalist printed a narrative final week saying 50 prosecutors within the western area of Khmelnytskyi had been registered as disabled.
Kostin subsequently ordered an investigation, which he stated had found the variety of prosecutors within the area with disabilities was 61, and that fifty of them had been registered disabled earlier than the struggle.
“It is very important to establish why they were granted disability status, because the share of such employees in Khmelnytskyi region is very high,” he stated.
The chief prosecutor’s resignation nonetheless must be authorized by parliament, the place Zelenskiy’s occasion holds a majority. After the president’s public name for accountability, it appeared overwhelmingly doubtless that parliament would approve it.
“It is not only prosecutors, by the way. There are hundreds of cases of obviously unjustified disability (statuses) among customs and tax officials, in the Pension Fund system, and in local administrations,” Zelenskiy stated in his night deal with.
“All this must be dealt with carefully and promptly.”
Zelenskiy ordered his cupboard to urgently draft a legislation reforming the incapacity evaluation system in order that the prevailing medical commissions could be dissolved by the top of 2024.
An govt order printed on Zelenskiy’s web site after Tuesday’s assembly stipulated that the commissions’ selections have to be checked inside three months by a newly established working group.
Ukraine’s home safety service, the SBU, stated on Tuesday that 64 members of medical commissions had been named as suspects in felony investigations in 2024, and 9 extra had been tried and located responsible.
