The Parliament of Ukraine has registered the Resolution on the dismissal of the Prosecutor General
Such a resolution is politically motivated.
A group of more than 150 MP`s registered a draft of the Resolution of distrust to the Prosecutor General Rouslan Riaboshapka. In case of successful voting it means dismissal for him.
According to the laws “On the Prosecution” (Article 42) and the "On the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine" (Articles 212-213), one of the grounds for dismissal of the Prosecutor General is the expression of distrust by the MP`s. It should be initiated by the 150 deputies, then supported by the half of the deputies votes (226). Such a decision does not require the presence of some offense in the actions of the Prosecutor General, the conclusion of an audit of professional activity, etc.
An extraordinary session of the Verkhovna Rada will be held on March 4, which will, in particular, discuss issues of the Government and reports of Law Enforcement officials, who are fighting corruption in Ukraine, including Prosecutor General's Report.
The motivational part of the draft Resolution is:
“Given the importance and urgency of establishing justice at the key request of society, there is every reason to argue that the Prosecutor General's poor performance of his duties and, as a consequence, his inconsistency with his position.
Lack of investigations, slowing down of the most resonant criminal proceedings indicates the unwillingness, inability or lack of capacity of the Prosecutor General to fulfill the tasks set by the law before his Office, in particular, and before the prosecution bodies as a whole."
According to CPLR expert Eugene Krapyvin, “the idea of the assessment of the efficiency of Prosecutor General only by the resonant criminal proceedings is concerning. The position of Prosecutor General is not political. So in general, he is not responsible for the malpractice of a particular prosecutor. We can debate on his powers for a long time, but the accusations of some MP`s that Rouslan Riaboshapka "fails to investigate Poroshenko's cases and protects Sternenko's, “who is the murderer" do not stand up to any criticism. At the same time, the performance of the Prosecutor General has never been evaluated by anyone, and the reference to "well-known facts" in draft of Resolution is nothing more than manipulation".
According to CPLR expert Volodymyr Petrakovsky, “Ukraine has a long and rich tradition of politically motivated, i.e. virtually arbitrary, dismissals of chiefprosecutors and top Law Enforcement officials. A "qualified conclusion" mechanism would prevent similar attempts. The point is that the dismissal of these officials can only happen after their work has been evaluated by an independent and politically neutral body or commission. However, this mechanism was actually destroyed by the hands of the deputies of this convocation. First, the MP`s abolished the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors, which would have to give such a "qualified opinion" to the Prosecutor General. Recently, MP`s dismissed the head of the SBI without first auditing his activities, simply adopting the relevant changes to the profile law. Nothing prevents the Parliament from dismissing the NABU Director in a similar manner. It is noteworthy that the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors and, accordingly, the “qualified opinion” mechanism for the Prosecutor General were liquidated at the insistence of Rouslan Riaboshapka”.
This situation indicates that, unless there is a “qualified conclusion” mechanism for any reason for dismissing the Prosecutor General, he will not be protected from politically motivated dismissal.