On August 10, MP of “Servant of the People” Andriy Klochko registered draft law 7654 “On Amendments to Some Laws of Ukraine Regarding the Unification of Requirements for Heads of Individual State Bodies.”
The MP proposes to review the requirements for candidates for the position of NABU Director, for example, by introducing a minimum age of 35 for candidates, establishing new requirements for proof of proficiency in Ukrainian and English, prohibiting members of political parties from being NABU Director, etc.
“This draft law can be used to delay the start of the competitive selection of a new director. Or there is an even worse option if the competition starts and the Verkhovna Rada approves this draft law already during its implementation. Changing the requirements for candidates during an ongoing competition is one of the ways to disrupt it and re-start it, for example, if the finalists are not candidates loyal to the government,” Olena Shcherban commented.”
Only at the end of July, the Government finally unblocked the work of the selection commeission for the selection of the director of NABU, cancelling the illegal demand, which concerned the member of the commission with an international quota, Drago Kos. This was finally supposed to start the work of the commission, which has not yet held any of its official meetings.
The election and appointment of the director of NABU is one of the conditions for maintaining Ukraine’s status as a candidate for EU membership and for starting negotiations on membership in the European Union. President Zelenskyi recently announced the start of the competition for the new director of the Bureau.
In addition, the draft law expands the list of grounds for the dismissal of heads of a number of state bodies, including NABU, NACP and SAPO. One of the new grounds for dismissal is proposed to be “prosecution of administrative responsibility for an administrative offense related to corruption.” Previously, in this way, they tried to dismiss the former director of NABU, fabricating an administrative protocol against him.