… Being one of the founders of the first professional public union of the prosecutors in this country and working on the staff of its executive committee from its first day and now, I am sure to have my personal subjective estimation of our unpretentious achievements in realization of the above-mentioned tasks.
Nevertheless, today I suggest focusing on the results of a small research that I have carried out preparing for this meeting with the help of the Internet means and searching services. In my opinion, they will enable us to have more serious and objective judgment about the current situation. According to the searching details “prosecutors’ image”, “Ukrainian prosecutors” and a number of the like variations for search, I have received the following results. In the majority of cases, excluding the legislative regulations and scientific articles, the publications suggested were “Prosecutors, Bandits And Oligarchs”, “Despots In Prosecutors’ Uniform”, “Prosecution’s Marasmus”, and others having the like names and content. The main information sources on prosecutors are web-resources with the typical names – “ORD”, “Majdan”, “Publc Prosecution”, etc. That is, the most well-known Internet “trash-cans” where any anonymous pasquinade meeting the needs of the resource’s owners would be published.
I would also suggest a brief press-review per May 18, 2010. I will content myself with one day hoping that every one of you who reads the press and watches TV will agree – it is a typical image. “Vechirni Visti” newspaper – “Does the prosecution avoid Tymoshenko?” – in a rather expressive column “Fight Without Rules”. “Segodnya” newspaper in its article “The Rioters’ Fate Is Decided By Tymoshenko” quoted the speech of a people’s deputy of Ukraine: “…the prosecution is brave enough to fight only with the opposition”. “Kyivski Vidomosti” newspaper in its publication “The Taming of the Smoke-Bombers” gives the own information that the criminal case filed by the General Prosecution of Ukraine was “too thin”, and the authorities “carry out the political repressions” just using the prosecution. “Stolychni Novyny” newspaper: the publication “All of them fighting, two of them charged” states that the General Prosecution “incriminates” certain deputies, and gives a hint that this criminal case would be used later on for political purposes only, and that the prosecution bodies are unable to provide for an independent investigation.
As you see, it is just an amazing flow of information dirt. It is not the objective information about the fact of filing a suit, nor characterization of actions of the persons involved, but a dirty guesswork based on some own doubtful sources about the political, sponsored criminal case and about the prosecution bodies’ participation in the political processes, about the partiality and biased judgments of the prosecutors and investigators. All this being published within just one day and referring to just one event!
It would also be appropriate to remember how much satisfaction did the local mass media experience and how much trust they’ve granted to the blatant lie spread by some dexterous businessmen obsessed by career and personal vengeance about the financial misuse demonstrated by the members of our Association. Today their ill fantasies are completely disproved by the reports of General Prosecution and the official experts, but this is no longer a matter of interest. An event that does not stink, does not bleed and has nothing to do with a scandal, is not attractive for the local media. And the fact that over five thousand honest people have been dragged through the mire for nothing – is just the “production costs”, as they love to say in Russia.
Unfortunately, there is no need to carry out any further sociological researches – the truth is obvious and evident. A real information war is fought systematically and purposefully against the prosecution bodies of Ukraine, as well as against all the other legislative and state bodies. And every day and every hour we suffer a defeat in this war.
Anyone having at least a little experience in communication with the representatives of modern mass media will definitely agree with me. The truthful information about the essential generally useful results of the prosecutors’ activity, the accounts of their hard work, the hardships and danger they daily cope with on their way to truth is non-format.
The majority of journalists consider all this unattractive for the readers and TV viewers. It is way more exciting and thrilling to show an interview with a maniac who has killed dozens of people, or a recidivist’s undefended sob-story of how he suffered from the police officer’s “violence”, or a publication about breathtaking treasures and mansions of the prosecutors and judges, etc.
I am far from believing that all journalists must be patriots, and all the more – must love prosecution and to sing it praises. We shouldn’t forget that a journalist must make a product that is interesting and needed, in other words, that is in the market, or otherwise he will be condemned to poverty. This also makes an impact on the objectivity and impartialness at presenting the events, but this fact should be treated with understanding.
Moreover, I am a strong advocate of freedom of speech, and I am sure that the mass media that is free from any pressure or illegal influence is an irreplaceable tool for public control of legal bodies’ activities, and an attribute of democracy. But things happening now have nothing to do with this.
A pouring rain of information dirt referring to certain officers of the prosecution bodies as well as to the general estimation of prosecution bodies’ activity, has led to a firm, negative public opinion on the prosecution and prosecutors. Such rate is present now even in the minds of those who have never applied to the prosecution in person and who have never known any prosecutor or investigator. As to me, I have often come across a situation where prosecutors and prosecution were disliked even by those who can’t spell these words, let alone more or less clearly understand the role and place of prosecution in the state structure, its constitutional functions and its authority determined by the Law.
On the other hand, due to a number of objective and subjective reasons, today the level of public trust towards the information granted by state bodies, prosecution in particular, is the lowest in all history of independent Ukraine. Here we also see the results of the many-year information blank in the policy of the state which had nothing to cite against the popular statement of that time saying that there is no greater enemy of a simple Ukrainian citizen than his own state, and that all state institutions are full of monsters infected with corruption, their aim being to abuse simple people and to suppress their wills and minds.
The seriousness of this situation can be illustrated by the following example. During my business trip abroad, I had a pleasure to talk with a rather famous legal scholar, professor who had been on the team of national delegation, and who had been our country’s official representative in a big international anti-corruption institution at that time. Once in an informal conversation with other delegates, the honored professor expressed an opinion that all prosecutors – at least among the regions’ prosecutors – are infected with corruption and have illegal income, that their lifestyle does not correspond to their official earnings.
You would probably agree that there was nothing new in his words, same things could be heard, seen or read every day here. Although being a prosecutor and a member of the Association, I had some doubts about this thesis, so I asked the professor to give at least one certain example, or to name a dozen of region prosecutors whom he had accused of corruption. His reaction was quite unique and I remembered it for the rest of my life. Immediately I was accused of mere esprit de corps protection, I was told that our friendly conversation should not give way to this, and that only commonly known things were mentioned. That’s the thing – the professor of law, the official state representative thinks of the corruption of over ten thousand prosecutors as of some axiom that does not require a proof! And you can only imagine what kind of information on the measures undertaken by our state in cleanup of corruption the foreign experts can get from the person who claims the total corruption of his own state mechanism to be an unquestionable fact!
I have spent this much time for such introduction with only one purpose. I really hope that all of us will finally understand that the tasks we have are the weighty matters of state. How much does the Ukrainian prosecution need our involvement, professionalism and – which is more – effective efforts in sustaining its authority and improving its image.
This would have to be done in terms of information war, in terms of Ukrainian mass media’s deliberate or unconscious ignoring any good information about the prosecution and prosecutors, in terms of the established negative public opinion on the prosecution activity which is based on a twisted understanding of the situation. We must also clearly understand the fact that within all the past years we haven’t made a single step ahead on the way to realization of this task. And first of all we haven’t made it in the regions, in our own primary organizations – that is in places being the clue to general success.
During the five years of our membership in the Ukrainian Association of Prosecutors, I cannot remember a single case when a local body would be willing to send a publication for our magazine “Radnyk Justycii” or the web-site which would reflect the attitude of the prosecutors in the region towards the events related to the prosecutors and prosecution, which would sustain the authority and would keep up the image of prosecutors and prosecution. Even the grateful articles about the professional leaders, the veterans of prosecution bodies, dedicated to their jubilees are very few indeed. And here comes the first and very important conclusion: in terms of the information blockade, we do not use properly the own very poor information resources but still we keep paying for their maintenance!
It seems to me that the situation is totally insensible. So the number-one thing I want to emphasize is that every one of us has to finally decide whether we are ready to work at the Association tasks, or whether our membership in it has turned into a mere formality. And a few words about the possible ways of achieving goods results for those who are ready to begin some real work.
… Reasoning from the above-mentioned analysis of the current situation, I believe our main tasks are the breach of the information blockade, the establishment and information support of the channels which would bring the society a truthful information about the results of the prosecution bodies’ activity, about the honest and devoted prosecutors and investigators, about the true generally useful role of the prosecution bodies in providing for legality, order and the citizens’ and state’s rights and interest protection.
Not to come back to this subject again, I should say that our magazine “Radnyk Justycii” and the Internet web-page will later on be flooded with analysis, sharp articles, letters and stories.
… The serious problems in establishing cooperation with the journalists and the mass media that I’ve mentioned do not mean that we should once and for all times refuse from such cooperation, especially since not all of the journalists and mass media managers support the blind and groundless criticism aimed at the state institutions. Therefore my suggestion is this – first of all we should make the Association body known to the local journalists, we should make known our readiness to cooperate with the mass media in a constructive and concerned manner. My personal advice would be to arrange an informal meeting with the Head of the region’s body of the Journalists Union, to take part in a scheduled session of a press-club (if there is any in the region). I am sure that such meeting could be easily organized with the help of the region prosecutors’ press-secretaries. And my personal advice for this meeting would be to find the most experienced prosecutors and investigators among your colleagues, professionals in different areas of prosecution and investigation who have skills of speaking in public and who are sociable and ready for communication with the press. It would be appropriate to pass the contact information on these persons to the journalists and to express the readiness to grant any help in preparing the materials about the prosecution’s activity in corresponding matters, to be interviewed or to consult them about the facts or events referring to the prosecution bodies.
Besides, there’s a possibility to make arrangements with the Head of the Union and to be granting the information about the results of the prosecution bodies’ activity for the fulfillment of their functions determined by the Constitution of Ukraine and comments by the professionals to the journalists on a regular basis (depending on the accounting periods in the prosecution bodies). But for all that, the emphasis should be made on the positive achievements, on the amounts of money returned to the state budget, on the paid off wages, on the funds directed to public assistance, etc. It would also be helpful to suggest an interview with the prosecutors and investigators who have achieved essential results within the accounting period.
In the similar manner, having agreed it with the editors of some professional juridical issues, state and municipal mass media, a local body could be providing the information for the corresponding columns, such as “The Prosecutors Informing”, “Legality Protection”, “Protecting People and Law”, etc.
Another way of cooperation could be granting the journalists an opportunity to get to know in person and to communicate with the representatives of different generations of prosecutors and investigators, including acquaintance with their families, seeing their housing and knowing their financial position, to meet with and to interview the people whose rights and interests had been effectively restored by the prosecutors, and so on. In other words, we must work at it, so that the journalists would be able to report to the people about our common persuasion that a prosecution officer is a well-educated person, our countryman whose concerns and worries are just the same as every Ukrainian has. We should practically demonstrate that the prosecutors’ professional occupation is very hard, it requires great energy and intellectual input and is often directly linked to risking life and health, to continuous professional self-perfection, to the exceptional ability to sympathize the people’s grief, to sacrificing personal interests for a good cause.
I am sure this is the only way to gradual but complete change of the existing social image of a prosecutor – a disgusting, amoral, corrupted creature whose financial situation is pretty close to such of an oligarch, and who is busy only with selling the corporate secrets and state interests during all his working time.
I also strongly recommend trying to work on the restoration of public credit to the prosecution bodies and prosecutors. And I see the only one way to it – to come directly to the people, first of all to those ones whose world-view is just being formed and is not affected by the mentioned negative social processes yet. The students of high-schools and other educational institutions of the same level are the first ones on the list. I am sure that not a single manager will refuse from arranging such meetings within the bounds of professional work or within the bounds of the events designed for crime prevention among youth. Juvenile and children’s organizations would gladly assist our local bodies in this matter.
Here too I can’t help opposing those who consider it the right time for saying good-by to the prosecutor’s uniform. Maybe the time will come for this as well. But now a prosecutor wearing the uniform and all the medals and awards for his hard work has an opportunity to change the minds of young people, to stir up their willingness to listen to a good advice and maybe even to get them interested in serving the law. This might sound too romantic and unconvincing, but trust me, there will necessarily be some good results of such meetings. And these young people who have talked with the real prosecutor, who have heard his story, who have looked him in the eye will not be so easily deceived by unreasonable pasquinades about the total amorality of the prosecution. It is because their understanding of the prosecution will not associate with some unprincipled and cruel structure. It will associate with the certain person they’ve met, the person who told them simple and understandable truth, the person who doesn’t differ from their parents, brothers or older friends, and therefore has the right for respect and authority.
The same kind of meetings should be suggested to the managers, directors of the students’ organizations, heads of the parties’ local bodies, etc. The importance of such meetings can be proved by legal arguments, disputes between the organizations or their members, where the prosecution bodies took part.
… I will say a few more words about the realization of tasks in protection of the prosecutors’ rights and legal interests. I have chosen this subject on purpose, knowing that our achievements in this area are very small. Due to the lack of time, I will not go into details of such cases when our colleagues, the prosecutors and investigators of different regions of our country found themselves under illegal pressure and have been discredited. In each of these cases we were not heard, we have not received a single appeal from a local body with a motivated request to assist the rights and interests protection of our honest and highly qualified colleagues, nor the opposite – an appeal to the General Prosecutor of Ukraine with a request to dismiss an officer who had committed a delinquency or a crime, who had broken the ethic norms and rules of a prosecutor.
I would like to draw your attention today to a new challenge of the prosecutors and investigators, which threatened the general corporate rights. I would like to compare this danger to the diligence and promptness of our reaction to it. We must understand that if such things keep happening, the prosecutors will have no interest in the Association and no hope in the possibility of their rights and interests protection by the Association.
So here’s some brief description of the challenge. It is obvious that every change of the ruling top in the country, every pre-election campaign of any political party leads to the speculations about the necessity of economic reforms. The change in pension (social security) system is the integral part of these reforms. The heart of these reforms normally comes to talks about the restoration of social equality, which is very popular among people – that is, minimizing the decent pensions of those who have them and an essential increase of pensions for those who have the so-called ‘social amounts’ at this expense. The prosecutors are always listed among those who possess the most fantastic fortune and who have inconceivably big pensions. Besides, the most teasing argument for the people is the fact the prosecutors retire independently from their age, often when they are only 40-45 years old.
No wonder that right after the establishment of new rule and the Government formation, the appeals for the urgent pension reform could be clearly heard within the country’s information space again. The fact of the matter was that the budgeted deficit of the Pension Fund of Ukraine providing for the country’s pension responsibilities comes to 30 billion hryvna, and therefore it is absolutely necessary to mark up the retirement age of the citizens, to limit the retirement age for those to whom the long service pensions apply, to restrict the maximal pension amount to the multiple of the minimal pension amount, etc. This will supposedly allow for the future balancing of the Pension Fund and for further social equality at the use of its money.
Everyone knows what these changes would mean to the prosecution bodies. Briefly speaking, it is the actual withdrawal of the prosecutors’ and investigators’ long service pensions provided by the Law of Ukraine “About Prosecution”! Who, if not the prosecutors themselves, should have told people the truth about such ideas being not only ineffective from the point of economy, but leading directly to the destruction of the prosecution bodies’ system and the staff collapse from the point of statehood? But we were silent; at least I couldn’t find any prosecutors’ publication on this among the available information sources. So we are hiding, sitting quietly and waiting.
Thank God, today the President and the Prime-Minister have chilled out the pension reformers; have directed those live wires to search for the effective and economically sound ways of filling the Pension Fund. But have these discussions ceased for good? Has the sword of Damocles disappeared? I am sure that a lot depends on us.
What exactly are we supposed to tell the people to dispel this myth about the unreasonably big prosecutors’ pensions once and for all times? First of all – the above: the real meaning, the social role, the hardships and dangers of the prosecutors’ professional activity. This will help the people to understand that 20 years of this kind of work is a period which can make a person unable to work, and that any age limits have nothing to do with it.
Secondly, it is a pure economic. The mass media have informed that today there are 5 thousand 222 retired prosecutors all over the country getting the average long service pensions in the amount of 5 thousand 678 hryvna; 165 former high-ranking prosecution officials are getting the pensions of 15 thousand 959 hryvna. The Pension Fund of Ukraine spends 29.6 million hryvna per month for the retired prosecution officers.
You would agree that such information can be killing for the people’s minds, especially for those who have dedicated their lives to work and now are getting the pension of 800 hryvna. Besides, from day to day they are purposely being convinced that it is because of the big prosecutors’ pensions they have to live in poverty. And we are silent, I should repeat. Maybe we are waiting for people to grab the pitchfork and assault the prosecution.
But before this happened, let’s present some more details to the people, if only we value their attitude towards us. Firstly I would recommend informing them that every month the working prosecutors and investigators make the remittance of about 21 million hryvna (20 million 849 thousand) of their income to the Pension Fund. That means that the retired prosecutors are completely supported and provided by their working colleagues! Isn’t it worthy of being known?
Secondly, thanks to the prosecutors, during only the first quarter of the current year the Pension Fund got the transfer of over 86 million hryvna! So is there any small reason to state that the prosecutors get their pensions on someone else’s expense? No, there isn’t any, but who knows or hears about it?
Further on, as the government reports, the general Pension Fund’s deficit is over 30 billion hryvna. I am absolutely certain to say that on the end of the first quarter of the current year the obligatory payments indebtedness to the Pension Fund came to 4.2 billion hryvna. Even if all the prosecutors and investigators are completely deprived of their pensions the Fund will save, as has been mentioned above, the total of 29.6 million hryvna!
No need to be an outstanding economist or mathematician to make the conclusion: talking about the Pension Fund balancing at the expense of the prosecutors’ long service pensions just doesn’t make sense! The establishment of retirement age for the prosecutors is nothing else but an attempt to solve the problems of Pension Fund by means of their direct exploitation. And this is after termination of all the generally accepted time norms of working in the conditions of extreme physical, psychological and mental stress.
Within the past year the prosecutors protecting the country’s economy from criminal attempts have assigned over 1.6 billion hryvna, over 720 million of which have been transferred to the National budget. This compares to the last years’ 966.2 million hryvna that the state spent for the prosecution bodies of Ukraine. It shows that the economic effect of the prosecutors’ activity is obvious and unquestionable, though such our tasks are not determined by the law.
To my mind, this gives us the ground to protest in a determined and well-reasoned manner against any attempts to accuse the prosecutors not only of big pension’s amounts, but of big amounts of their wages.
Here’s another example. And another new and serious challenge. All of you know Volodymyr Ar’ev, the People’s Deputy of Ukraine. This people’s representative has been presenting the initiatives in order to deprive the prosecutors of their rights and authorities, and sometimes even social security. His recent masterpiece in this area is the draft bill №6318 “The changes to the Law “About Prosecution” (regarding the privileges cancellation) registered in Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on April 15, 2010. This public figure once again offers to cancel the prosecutors’ and investigators’ right for a privilege of housing assignment, and to level the pension rights of the prosecutors in accordance with the law “About the compulsory pension insurance”.
I find it necessary to explain to the people the real motivation of drawing such bills. The people should clearly understand that it is neither love for them, nor loyalty to the social justice principles drives such authors. Indeed, they do not care at all about these things – otherwise they would have begun with themselves and would have drawn a bill depriving the People’s Deputies of their special pensions. Since almost 2 thousand of them have an average pension that comes to 15 thousand 443 hryvna (just to remind you, there are 165 prosecutors who have the same pension).
The driving power of the above-mentioned Ar’ev’s initiatives is his hate towards the prosecution bodies of Ukraine which used to take measures in law protection and processed the investigation of the criminal case filed against him by the prosecution of the Republic of Poland for the attempt of illegal drugs transportation. So the prosecutors are really guilty in mistreat of this Deputy, but only of one thing - they have not carried this case through. I believe it is the task of the Ukrainian Association of Prosecutors and its local bodies to timely help the people see the real situation and the real moral portrait of persons attempting to cause harm, to abuse the image of the prosecution and prosecutors, to deprive them of means and conditions for their full and effective implementation of the constitutional functions.
We are the first professional public union of the prosecutors in this country’s history. We are making our way through a wild path, and we are not protected from temporary mistakes or wrong vision. But there is one thing I am absolutely confident in – no one will replace us in accomplishing the noble deeds which are so important for the prosecution, and for which we have come together and combined our efforts five years ago. So let’s step forward, and may these steps always be successful.
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