Legislation: Ukraine has signed and ratified the United Nations Convention against Corruption and is party to the Council of Europe anti-corruption conventions. Ukraine's Criminal Code criminalises the major forms of corruption, including active and passive bribery, attempted corruption, extortion, bribing a foreign official, money laundering, and abuse of office. Although the Bertelsmann Foundation 2010 notes that no high-profile cases related to abuse of office had been brought to court, the recent investigation of Timoshenko on allegations of misuse of state funds and abuse of office during her years as Prime Minister, initiated by the incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych, could be seen as an exception and a clear diversion from the political line of former President Yushchenko. Initially, corruption was defined by the Law on the Prevention of Corruption (LPC), the violations of which entailed only administrative liability. This law had been criticised for targeting only low or mid-level state employees and for its inconsistencies with the Criminal Code. However, in June 2009, the Parliament adopted an Anti-Corruption Package of laws in its second reading. The Anti-Corruption Package consists of the Law on the Principles of Prevention and Counteraction of Corruption, the Law on the Responsibility of Legal Persons for Corruption Offences (in Ukrainian), and the Law on Amending Certain Legal Acts Regarding Responsibility for Corruption Offences (in Ukrainian). The Anti-Corruption Package was expected to enter into force in January 2011; however, on 4 January 2011, the President signed a law cancelling the Anti-Corruption Package of laws. On the other hand, in December 2010, Yanukovych submitted a draft Law on Principles of Preventing and Counteracting Corruption to the Parliament. The new draft law was developed by the National Anti-Corruption Committee and provides for the introduction of active mechanisms to prevent corruption. In April 2011, the Parliament adopted the new anti-corruption law. It also adopted a Corruption Offences Law, which is supposed to ensure the implementation of various anti-corruption laws, including the Criminal Code, the Code on Administrative Offences, the Law on Amendments to the Criminal Procedural Code, and the Law on State Service. Under the new anti-corruption law, government officials are required to disclose their expenditures as of January 2012. The new anti-corruption law introduces a broad list of officials who can be held liable for corruption offences, including functionaries in the state or local government, civil servants paid by the state or local budget, public service providers (such as auditors, notaries, arbitrators), foreign officials, foreign arbitration court judges, and employees in private legal entities. The law stipulates the limits to gifts which may be given to such persons as well as certain other restrictions. Nevertheless, according to the two GRECO reports, the Evaluation Report on Incriminations 2011 and the Evaluation Report on Transparency of Party Funding 2011, Ukraine's efforts to combat bribery and create greater transparency of political funding remain insufficient. The two reports note some improvements in relation to Ukraine's measures in 2011 to bring the country's legal framework in line with Council of Europe standards, however, they allege that much more needs to be done to complete the anti-corruption framework. For instance, private sector bribery and trading in influence are not fully addressed in Ukraine's legislation, while provisions on public sector bribery must be expanded to cover non-material gain, according to the GRECO reports. Access the Lexadin World Law Guide for a collection of legislation in Ukraine.

Government Strategies: One of former President Yushchenko's main anti-corruption initiatives was to mandate all state officials to disclose their and their family members' assets. Many similar campaigns to curb corruption have been launched in the past but with limited to no effect, as with this initiative. The government introduced a series of anti-corruption initiatives in 2005, including dismantling or reforming several of the most bribery-prone government agencies, such as the state road police and the customs office, where a 'single window' principle for customs registration procedures has been introduced. The former President signed decrees in 2006 establishing a national anti-corruption strategy and requiring Ukraine to fulfil its obligations to the Council of Europe that require numerous anti-corruption provisions. The 2001 Ukraine-EU Action Plan on Justice and Home Affairs specifies the fight against corruption and money laundering as two areas for cooperation between the EU and Ukraine. Ukraine also received USD 45 million when it adopted the USAID Millennium Challenge Corporation Threshold Program in 2006. The programme focuses on anti-corruption and supports projects with the goal of preventing corruption by reforming the judiciary, solving regulatory problems and involving civil society more in anti-corruption efforts. President Viktor Yanukovych has expressed his readiness to fight corruption, including high-level graft. However, this readiness has arguably not yet transformed into systematic actions, despite the newly created anti-corruption bodies, drafted legislation, and some high-level graft probes. According to a statement by the president of the GRECO at an investor meeting in Kyiv in October 2010, cited in the US Department of State 2010, there have been no improvements in Ukraine's anti-corruption efforts since the Yanukovych government took office. This perception is supported by the Freedom House 2011, according to which the anti-corruption efforts of recent years in Ukraine follow a cyclical pattern. According to the report, each major anti-corruption campaign includes the following stages: criticism of predecessors' anti-corruption work, establishment of advisory bodies to monitor anti-corruption efforts, adoption of relevant strategies and acts, demonstrative punishment targeting the opposition or low to mid-level officials. Freedom House 2011 alleges that also the Yanukovych administration anti-corruption policies are generally not implemented in an effective manner.

Anti-Corruption Agencies: The Parliamentary Commission on Combating Organised Crime and Corruption (in Ukrainian) has been functioning since 1990 to debate corruption issues and improve anti-corruption legislation and measures in cooperation with civil society. The coordination of the anti-corruption tasks of the government is overseen by the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC). This body consists of the President, the Prime Minister, the Chairman of the Parliament, the Prosecutor General and the heads of several ministries. It appears that combating corruption is not a high priority compared to the many other tasks addressed by the NSDC, such as energy security. However, the NSDC has ruled on some issues concerning corruption, for example, regarding transparency of the VAT administrative procedures in December 2006 and regarding improvement of the investment climate in July 2007. In accordance with a presidential decree, the NSDC created an Interagency Commission (IC) in 2005 to establish and coordinate anti-corruption activities of all government agencies and to review their progress in this regard. The IC has drafted different anti-corruption strategies and action plans and has developed recommendations in the area of smuggling. Global Integrity 2009 assesses that Ukraine's various anti-corruption agencies are not protected from political interference either in law or in practice. Similarly, according to the report, appointments to the anti-corruption agencies are, as a rule, based on political considerations, and individuals appointed tend to have clear party loyalties.

National Anti-Corruption Committee (NAC) was created by the incumbent President Yanukovych in February 2010, with the aim to combat corruption more effectively in Ukraine. The law provides for the Committee to conduct a systematic analysis of corruption in the country and of existent anti-corruption measures, as well as to develop new anti-corruption measures. The NAC is also expected to harmonise current anti-corruption laws and eliminate the existing contradictions in them. Furthermore, the NAC is envisaged to prepare proposals on simplification of licensing and other procedures related to the conduct of business of SMEs. The NAC has already been operationalised by the government and been ordered to draft a new anti-corruption law. As a result, in December 2010, Yanukovych submitted a draft anti-corruption law to the Parliament, that had been developed by the Committee. It is, however, still early to evaluate the performance and efficiency of this new anti-corruption body.  

Accounting Chamber: The Accounting Chamber is an independent governmental oversight institution. It is authorised to review the implementation of legislation. Moreover, it can carry out performance and financial control and analysis of all governmental programmes and institutions. The Accounting Chamber works proactively to communicate with governmental institutions and improve legislation and practices. It cooperates with the Office of the Prosecutor General and monitors the development of cases it has passed to the office for investigation. The Accounting Chamber has uncovered the misuse or ineffective use of budget and extra-budget funds totalling USD billions. According to Global Integrity 2009, appointments to the Chamber support its independence and tend to be based on professional criteria. Nevertheless, at the same time, audit reports are usually ignored or only given superficial attention by the government.

Ombudsman: The Ombudsman does not play a significant role in fighting or preventing corruption. While the Ombudsman collects thousands of citizen complaints through e-mail and the Ombudsman's hotline (found on the Ombudsman's website), the Ombudsman does not analyse this information to identify problem trends. Rather, the Ombudsman acts on a case-by-case basis and rarely passes this information on to the offending governmental institutions to bring their attention to abuses and violations. The Ombudsman's Annual Report to Parliament primarily contains statistics on complaints and complainers but no systematic analysis or recommendations for reform. According to Global Integrity 2009, the Ombudsman is often influenced by political and personal incentives, such as personal and professional loyalties, but also possibly some abuses of power. Moreover, according to the report, the appointments are sometimes made based on political considerations, and appointed individuals may sometimes have clear professional loyalties.

Main Department of Civil Service of Ukraine (MCSD): The MCSD trains public officials to counter corruption and conducts internal government monitoring in relation to corruption charges. Furthermore, the department has approved a Public Servant's Code of Conduct, but its dissemination is still poor according to observers. Some codes of conduct for specific public sectors, such as the police, judges and prosecutors, have also been developed. Some public service bodies have established internal investigation structures within their systems to investigate corruption offences and violations of the codes. Nevertheless, disciplinary sanctions are often applied for corruption offences rather than criminal legal sanctions. The MCSD operates an Internet reporting mechanism as well as a corruption hotline (currently not working on the English version of the website).

Law Enforcement Agencies: The law enforcement agencies responsible for fighting corruption are the Ministry of Interior (the police), the Security Service, the State Tax Administration (where a special division deals with reports on corruption cases within state tax agencies) and the Prosecutor General, who is appointed by the President and responsible for court prosecutions. No specialised anti-corruption law enforcement agency exists in Ukraine. The Ministry of Interior regularly posts crime statistics, including organised and economic crime, on its website. According to statistics from the Ministry of Interior's Serious Fraud Division, law enforcement agencies in Ukraine in the first six months of 2007 had documented 1,900 bribe-related offences, and 1,300 cases were pending trial. According to these figures, Ukrainian public servants received 'gratuities' for 'services' in the amount of UAH 8.5 million. Observers have noted that there is little coordination among these various law enforcement agencies. In January 2009, former President Yushchenko expressed his dissatisfaction with the performance of both the Security Service and the Prosecutor General in relation to the fight against corruption, as reported in a 2009 article by Kyiv Post. According to the source, former President was particularly displeased with the work of law enforcement in relation to prosecuting government officials and holding them accountable. The former President expressed his concerns that this outcome could entail distrust of the citizens in the law enforcement system.

Prosecutor General: The Prosecutor General heads the system of official prosecution in courts known as the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. The Prosecutor General is presidentially appointed to office with the consent of Parliament for a five year term. The Prosecutor General can be dismissed from office by the President, and Parliament can express no confidence in the Prosecutor General which would result in his or her resignation from office. The Office of the Prosecutor General is responsible for: 1) prosecution in court cases on behalf of the state, 2) representation of the interests of a citizen or of the state in court in cases determined by law, 3) supervision of the observance of laws by bodies that conduct detective and search activity, inquiry and pre-trial investigation, and 4) supervision of the observance of laws in the execution of judicial decisions in criminal cases, and also in the application of other measures of coercion related to the restraint of personal liberty of citizens. Both in theory and in practice, the Prosecutor General and the Office of the Prosecutor General wield considerable power. For instance, only the Prosecutor General and the Chairman of the Supreme Court of Ukraine may file requests to Parliament to withhold the immunity of deputies from detainment or arrest. Former President Yushchenko said that the 2008 reports by the Prosecutor General indicate ineffectiveness of measures against corruption taken by the Prosecutor General's office, as reported in a 2009 article by Kyiv Post. According to the Bertelsmann Foundation 2010, the fact that the Prosecutor General's Office is responsible for the monitoring of human rights, including the compliance of the executive organs, contradicts the rule of law and the separation of powers in Ukraine.

State Control and Revision Office (KRU): The KRU exercises control over the use and preservation of public financial resources. In 2005, the KRU developed a systematic approach to quality control and anti-corruption and the institution audits other public institutions both regularly and on an extraordinary basis. These inspections have uncovered hundreds of instances of corruption related violations.

E-Governance: The web-portal of the Ukrainian government was established in 2003 and provides links to government ministries. It is a national programme designed to encourage the integration of information technology in the country. According to its strategy document, its goal is the total computerisation of all institutions financed by the state budget. The portal provides companies and citizens with information on several topics such as taxation, legal advice and property rights, regulations, privatisation, investments and financing (currently not working in English version of portal). Civil society has been actively participating in the development of Ukraine's e-governance strategy, although effective communication between government and civil society actors has been lacking. The government attempted to introduce legislation on electronic data reporting for companies, public and budget organisations, and payment for independent evaluators of purchase and sales transactions by citizens in 2008. This legislation has been assessed by Freedom House 2009 as a 'worrisome appearance', since it stipulates the establishment of two councils consisting of MPs, officials, and public activists, with unclear responsibilities and quasi-monopolistic status. According to the source, this could signal the government's intention to create additional rent-seeking bodies in the country's economic activities.

Public Procurement: Public procurement has been an area of intense political debate and tension over the past several years, and significant changes to the legal framework for public procurement have taken place. The main problem has been the distribution of guiding functions of the state regarding monitoring, control and coordination of public procurement between different executive agencies, legislative organs, public organisations and companies. This distribution resulted in a severe lack of coordination and the duplication of functions of various agencies. It also failed to provide an integrated state policy for public procurement, which is, according to the Constitution, the responsibility of government. In 2008, the public procurement system of Ukraine was subjected to a number of institutional and procedural modifications. Responding to widespread complaints of the corrupt and dysfunctional procurement system in March 2008, Parliament repealed the law on public procurement. The Cabinet of Ministers then passed a resolution cancelling all legal amendments to the public procurement law since November 2004. The resolution also abolished the role of the defunct Tender Chamber of Ukraine, which was officially liquidated by the former President in early April 2008. The Ministry of Economic Affairs was again made the central public procurement oversight and policy making body. In order to boost transparency, the Ministry of Economic Affairs developed a web-portal on public procurement. In May 2008, the draft Law 'On Public Procurement of Goods, Work and Services' was adopted in its first reading. After the Constitutional Court struck down the law in October 2008 based on inconsistencies with the constitution, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted that same month a revised version of the law, the 'Provision on Procurement of Goods, Work and Services'. In February 2010, the Parliament adopted an act regulating access to public procurement, thus fulfilling the EU requirement. The act is envisaged to ensure equal access to public procurement. According to a 2010 evaluation by the Centre for Eastern Studies, a think tank, for the last two years, public procurement in the country often took place without tenders or competitions (in 2009, more than 60% of public procurement took place in this way), resulting in unequal access to public funds for the bidders, and in barriers for foreign companies. The new act will formally grant access to procurement to all operators. However, critics of the new law have been pointing to the shortcomings of the appeal mechanisms, which may lead to corruption, as was the case with the provisions on appeals in the previous act. Ukraine's new procurement law, which came into effect in July 2010, aims to make procurement non-discriminatory and more transparent, according to the US Department of State 2011. However, according to the report, implementing mechanisms for the new law were not yet fully in place as of the end of 2010, and amendments to the law remain pending in Ukraine's legislature. As a result, it is too early to evaluate whether the law will improve the functioning of the procurement system.

Whistle-Blowing: According to Global Integrity 2009, whistle-blowing mechanisms are very weak in Ukraine. Civil servants are not legally protected against recrimination or other negative consequences when reporting corruption. Citizens are ostensibly protected by provisions in existing laws, but their rights are rarely protected in practice. Governmental institutions are obligated to have mechanisms to collect and respond to citizen complaints. In addition, almost all governmental agencies have recently introduced telephone and web-based public hotlines. Companies and citizens are encouraged to report cases of smuggling and corruption within Ukrainian customs administration to the Security Service of Ukraine. However, the public generally either sees reporting corruption as dangerous or unnecessary, or is sceptical of the effectiveness of reporting mechanisms. According to Global Integrity 2009, most citizens see whistle-blowing as futile because of the lack of an impartial and trustworthy court system. To provide citizens with alternative reporting options, Presidential Public Reception offices have been opened and are reporting a mounting number of complaints.

General Comments on the Public Anti-Corruption Initiatives: Although government action is still limited and uncoordinated in Ukraine, fundamental changes have taken place in the government's attitude towards corruption. The problem of corruption is now openly discussed by governmental and parliamentary officials with the media and public at large. At the same time, however, Ukraine still lacks strong and clear national policies and a strategic direction against corruption, as well as accompanying programmes to increase transparency, strengthen accountability and build integrity, according to the Bertelsmann Foundation 2010. There is a need to reform agencies, laws and regulations so that they are more cooperative, coherent and transparent, while the need to protect whistle-blowers and involve civil society more in anti-corruption efforts is pressing. This is also emphasised by Freedom House 2010, according to which Ukraine suffers severely from non-transparency of official bodies, lack of political will to fight corruption, high impact of oligarchic groups on decision-making and state appointments, lack of security of private ownership, ineffectiveness of the judicial system, and absence of civil control over the income and expenditures of high officials.