Watchdog

KYIV – The Group of Seven (G7) leading industrialized countries says it is "alarmed" by the rollback of reforms in Ukraine after the Constitutional Court stripped the country's anti-corruption agency of some of its critical powers.

"The G7 ambassadors are alarmed by efforts to undo the anti-corruption reforms that followed the Revolution of Dignity," the group said in a statement on October 29, referring to the 2014 pro-Western Euromaidan uprising by its official name in Ukraine.

"Too much progress has been made, Ukraine must not go back to the past," the statement adds.

In a ruling published on October 28, the Constitutional Court declared it unconstitutional to hold officials criminally liable for intentionally providing false information on asset declarations. It also struck down several powers of the National Agency for Preventing Corruption (NAZK).

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on October 29 called an urgent meeting of the National Security Council, saying new bills should "immediately" be introduced to parliament to undo the damage caused by the court's decision.

The court ruled the NAZK's powers to verify asset declarations and monitor officials' lifestyles for signs of corruption unconstitutional. Free public access to officials' declarations was also made illegal, as was electronic declarations meant to increase transparency.

It also deprived the NAZK of the right to access registers, draft reports on violations, and conduct anti-corruption inspections in government agencies.

The decision could threaten visa liberalization with the European Union and impact reforms required under a $5 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal Zelenskiy's government secured in June to fight a sharp economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

But the IMF has held back tranches due to concerns over Ukraine's performance in tackling corruption and implementing reforms.

Visa liberalization with the EU is also contingent on Ukraine fighting endemic corruption.

The court ruling is also controversial because four judges are under investigation by the NAZK for failing to properly declare assets in their declarations.

The four judges did not recuse themselves from the case, despite calls to do so from the government and anti-corruption campaigners.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

Russia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan remain near the top on the list of countries where the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says "impunity" in cases of murdered journalists is "entrenched."

The New York-based watchdog's 2020 Global Impunity Index highlighted a total of 12 countries where "journalists are singled out for murder and their killers go free."

Somalia, Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, and Afghanistan occupy the worst five spots in a ranking based on deaths as a percentage of each country's population, as "war and political instability perpetuate the cycle of violence and lawlessness."

In war-torn Afghanistan alone, 13 unresolved killings of journalists over the 10-year index period have been recorded, according to the CPJ.

The country was followed by Mexico, the Philippines, Brazil, and Pakistan, which ranked ninth in the index with 15 unresolved slayings of journalists.

WATCH: Hundreds of mourners bid farewell to independent Russian journalist Irina Slavina, who died after setting herself on fire in an apparent reaction to investigators trying to tie her to an opposition group and what's been described as years of harassment by authorities.

Embed share

Funeral Held For Independent Russian Journalist Who Set Herself On Fire

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:02:44 0:00

The CPJ welcomed a decision by Pakistan's Supreme Court this year to accept an appeal challenging a lower court's ruling overturning the murder convictions of four men accused in the killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.

The "surprise" legal development, although not directly affecting the 2020 Impunity Index, showed that "even murder cases that were long thought to be resolved can be upended," the watchdog noted.

Pakistan is followed in the raking by Bangladesh, Russia -- which was in 11th place with six unresolved killings of journalists -- and India.

Illustrating the "entrenched nature of impunity," the 12 countries on the index account for 80 percent of the global total of unsolved murders of journalists over the past 10 years, according to CPJ.

It said that in these 12 countries, powerful actors such as criminal and political groups, politicians, and business leaders "resort to violence to silence critical and investigative journalists," while corruption, weak institutions, and lack of political will to thoroughly investigate murder cases are all factors behind impunity there.

During the period ending on August 31, a total of 277 journalists were killed for their work worldwide and no perpetrators have been successfully prosecuted in 83 percent of those cases.

CPJ noted that the rate of "complete impunity has inched lower" in recent years.

The number of journalists killed in reprisal for their work was the lowest in 2019 that CPJ had recorded in any year since 1992, and while the number of killings in 2020 has already exceeded last year it is "not on track for a major increase."

However, the group warned that "incremental progress toward reducing the murders of journalists worldwide is fragile and could be thwarted by legal appeals and lack of political leadership."

It cited the case of a Serbian court that overturned in September the convictions of four former state security officers involved in the 1999 killing of journalist Slavko Curuvija and ordered a retrial.

And in Slovakia, a court acquitted a business tycoon suspected of ordering the 2018 killings of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee.