Faith in the justice system has been sorely tested in two recent cases, one of them involving a powerful ex-lawmaker, Mykola Martynenko, who is accused of widespread corruption.<\/p>\n
He was arrested April 21\u00a0on a series of charges.<\/p>\n
Judiciary modelled on Soviet system<\/h2>\n
But he was granted bail under a judiciary which is still largely modelled on the old Soviet system and populated with appointees of ousted former president Viktor Yanukovych.<\/p>\n
Syroyid said\u00a0the dismay of ordinary people is understandable.<\/p>\n
“They just don’t have trust in the justice system,” said Syroyid, who received a master’s degree in law from the University of Ottawa in 2003.<\/p>\n
“Trust has been lost, unfortunately, a long time ago People of Ukraine are frustrated by state institutions in general. For decades, Ukrainian state institutions were working not for the people of Ukraine but for the interests of seven specific persons,” she said, referencing\u00a0powerful oligarchs who have \u2014 and\u00a0in some cases\u00a0continue \u2014 to control vast swaths of the country’s economy.<\/p>\n
![\"Oksana](\"https:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/1.4105618.1494293586!\/fileImage\/httpImage\/image.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/original_620\/oksana-syroyid-deputy-speaker-of-ukrainian-parliament.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Oksana Syroyid, deputy Speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, was in Ottawa and Washington pressing the case for judicial reform. (Murray Brewster\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Both the Canadian and American embassies were consulted in the development of the legislation for the anti-corruption court, and Syroyid said\u00a0she believes Canada would have several good candidates to help in the selection of judges.<\/p>\n
A separate court is also one of the benchmarks established by the International Monetary Fund, which is pressuring the current government of Petro Poroshenko to clean up the economy.<\/p>\n
The country recently established a separate prosecution wing for high-level official corruption.<\/p>\n
Syroyid said\u00a0overhauling the existing justice system is a going to be a decade-long process that will require training lawyers and judges in a completely new way of thinking.<\/p>\n
Obstructing justice<\/h2>\n
Ukraine’s issues were underlined recently when four former Berkut riot police officers were granted bail after being charged with murder and torture related to the 2014 Maidan protests that brought down the Yanukovych government.<\/p>\n
Each of the former, highly trained cops promptly fled to Russia, claiming in local media reports\u00a0that it was “too dangerous” for them to remain in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The country’s interior minister has been accused of obstructing the prosecution. The department oversaw the officers, who\u00a0were accused of firing into protesters during the uprising, killing as many as 100 people.<\/p>\n
At least six other members of the same unit, including one commander, fled the country in 2014 to avoid prosecution.<\/p>\n
Canada has been involved in helping Ukraine overhaul its traffic police, training and equipping new officers.<\/p>\n
The Trudeau government also committed to helping with judicial reform and pledged funding to develop a modern legal aid system, which Syroyid said\u00a0will go a long way to restoring faith in the justice system for ordinary people.<\/p><\/p>\n
Article source: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/ukraine-canada-corruption-1.4105614?cmp=rss<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ukraine is looking for Canada’s backing as the embattled eastern European country establishes a special court to deal with anti-corruption cases. Legislation to set up the separate judicial framework is still making its way through the Ukrainian parliament, but the country’s deputy Speaker Oksana\u00a0Syroyid said\u00a0her government needs other nations to help select independent-minded judges. Syroyid\u00a0is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77657,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-77656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}