Riaboshapka announces launch of second stage of prosecutor's office reform

"Today we are launching the second stage of the reform of the prosecutor's office. The first stage was the adoption of a law on the reform of the prosecutor's office. Today is the second stage - the procedure for conducting competency assessment, its timetable," he said at a briefing on Friday.

According to Riaboshapka, the prosecutor's office should be updated and the number of prosecutors should be reduced.

"But these prosecutors need to be effective and honest. We propose introducing constant periodic integrity checks. We engaged NABU colleagues for this purpose," he added.

Riaboshapka said that a special department would be created to deal with high-profile cases, in particular, cases related to the theft of public funds, the withdrawal of funds from banks.

"We already have the first results of the prosecution of two former shareholders of two large banks," he said.

The Verkhovna Rada on September 19 adopted a law introducing amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine on priority measures for the reform of the prosecutor's office.

The law, in particular, proposes that instead of the current structure of the prosecuting authorities, after the prosecutors' competency assessment, it is necessary to build a new structure that should include the Office of the Prosecutor General, regional and district prosecutor's offices. The document also gives the prosecutor general the right to disband and reorganize district and regional prosecutor's offices.

In addition, the law liquidates military prosecutor's offices, simultaneously granting the prosecutor general the rights, if necessary, to create specialized prosecutor's offices as a structural subdivision of the Office of the Prosecutor General, regional and district prosecutor's offices.

The law also provides for a reduction in the maximum number of employees of prosecuting agencies from 15,000 to 10,000.

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