Can the Prosecutor General Stay Out of Politics? What Does the EU Actually Want?

In Ukraine, the office of Prosecutor General is regarded as one of the offices most subject to political considerations. Questions about appointments, powers and insufficient independence have surrounded almost everyone who has held the post.

Prosecutors General have consistently faced accusations of lacking professional experience, political bias, persecuting activists and even participating in the July 2025 attempt to eliminate the independence of the anti-corruption institutions. There is no avoiding the truth: Ukraine has often appointed politicians, unqualified individuals or people of questionable reputation as Prosecutor General. Sometimes all three at once.

The possibility of early termination does not guarantee the Prosecutor General sufficient independence. A resolution of no confidence supported by a majority of MPs, or 226 votes, is enough to remove the office holder. This makes the Prosecutor General a hostage to political forces and creates scope for pressure while the office holder remains in post.

The European Commission has noted the politicised procedure for appointing and dismissing the Prosecutor General. It requires a transparent and objective process that takes account of the views of prosecutors themselves.

There is now active discussion of introducing competitive selection for the position: the relevant draft law No. 15343 was registered on 22 June 2026. Ukraine’s scope for far-reaching legislative change is limited, however, because the Constitution cannot be amended during martial law.

If elements of the chosen model are found unconstitutional, its further implementation will be called into question. The Agency for Legislative Initiatives (ALI) has assessed how these processes could unfold in Ukraine’s circumstances.

Can the office of Prosecutor General be made less politicised during the war and, if so, how? How can Ukraine meet the European Commission’s requirement now and improve the procedure further once martial law ends? This article examines the options.

Under the Constitution, the President appoints and dismisses the Prosecutor General with the consent of the Verkhovna Rada. Yet the appointment procedure does not provide for transparent selection, prior assessment of a candidate’s professional competence or the participation of prosecutorial self-governance bodies through a merit-based selection process. The President’s unrestricted discretion over whom to nominate increases the risk that candidates will be politically dependent.

The Prosecutor General may be dismissed either for a breach of the law, under the professional criterion, or on political grounds through a vote of no confidence. The first mechanism does not work in practice, as all attempts to hold a Prosecutor General to disciplinary account have come to nothing. This leaves a vote of no confidence by political forces, which may be a direct response to the Prosecutor General’s efforts to combat political corruption and economic offences involving MPs themselves. It can therefore become a tool of political pressure and has repeatedly led Prosecutors General to submit a resignation pre-emptively. As early as 2014, the Venice Commission recommended ‘abolishing the vote of no confidence in the Prosecutor General’.

At first glance, a competitive procedure for selecting the Prosecutor General appears to be one possible mechanism for strengthening prosecutorial independence, reducing political influence over the office and increasing public trust in the prosecution service.

The Government does not support competitive selection. The prosecution service is not an executive authority and the Prosecutor General is not a member of the Government appointed on political grounds. The office is nevertheless part of the political system. Since competitive selection would restrict the President’s and Parliament’s discretion over whom to appoint, they are also likely to oppose such a solution.

The main constraint, however, is the constitutionality of such a step. Introducing it would require amendments to the Constitution, which cannot be made during martial law.

The Constitution clearly provides that appointing the Prosecutor General is currently the exclusive competence of the President and Parliament. This means that no competition, consultation or other appointment procedure is presently possible.

There are as many arguments that competitive selection would be constitutional as there are arguments to the contrary. Few people, however, are prepared to ask Parliament to support a risky legislative initiative that the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (CCU) may soon declare unconstitutional.

In my view, the CCU would ultimately adopt a purposive interpretation. It would reason that, because the procedure for appointing and dismissing the Prosecutor General did not change even when the prosecution service became part of the justice system in 2016, the legislature did not intend to introduce such a change. A competition was introduced for judges, but not for the Prosecutor General. The Court would therefore conclude that any restriction of the powers of the joint appointing authority, the President and the Verkhovna Rada, would be unconstitutional. The President’s powers to appoint judges and the Prosecutor General are thus part of the system of checks and balances that, among other things, safeguards the rule of law.

Ukraine could reduce the politicisation of the appointment and dismissal of the Prosecutor General, and thereby meet the European Commission’s requirement, as early as 2026. The first step would be to await the Venice Commission opinion referred to in Ukraine’s EU integration commitments.

Any legislative initiative adopted must avoid risks that could subsequently lead to the procedure being declared unconstitutional. A transitional model is therefore unavoidable: it will be a compromise rather than an ideal arrangement. Once martial law ends or is lifted, MPs will have a much wider range of options, although no one knows when that will happen.

One temporary solution could require the President, before submitting a nominee for Prosecutor General, to obtain an opinion on the candidate from the Council of Prosecutors of Ukraine. This would require a genuinely independent Council. The Rule of Law Roadmap provides for the Council’s transformation and for its institutional independence to be strengthened through legislation by the end of 2026. This should include its complete separation from the Office of the Prosecutor General, a review of its functions and members’ working arrangements, its establishment as a separate legal entity and provision of its own secretariat.

Would the opinion be binding? Not as a matter of law, because the President’s and Parliament’s discretion cannot be restricted without constitutional amendments. Under the transitional model, respect for the opinion would therefore depend on political convention. Even so, the procedure would clearly increase transparency and trust, demonstrate the criteria on which the President nominates a candidate and allow the self-governance body to provide a considered assessment. Making the process public would reduce the politicisation of the appointment.

After the war, when the Constitution can be amended, such an opinion could become binding and the Council of Prosecutors could conduct a competition or apply another procedure at its discretion. It could, for example, select the strongest candidate from among prosecutors on the basis of predetermined criteria, including integrity.

Without amending the Constitution, the dismissal procedure could involve a Temporary Investigation Commission (TIC) of the Verkhovna Rada. A TIC exercises parliamentary oversight by investigating matters of public interest. It would therefore be logical for MPs serving on the commission to examine failures by the Prosecutor General to perform functions and tasks that do not amount to a criminal offence or disciplinary misconduct and do not otherwise create grounds incompatible with holding office.

Once martial law ends, Ukraine could consider fully abolishing the political procedure for dismissing the Prosecutor General, namely a vote of no confidence. The law should retain only professional grounds for dismissal, such as the commission of a criminal offence or disciplinary misconduct.

Ukraine’s European partners are not demanding competitive selection, the involvement of international experts or the complete removal of the office of Prosecutor General from politics. They require the appointment and dismissal procedures to be open and transparent and the prosecutorial community to be involved. European standards for prosecution services do not prescribe a single mandatory model for appointing a prosecutor general. They focus on the quality of the procedure, candidates’ professionalism and minimising political influence.

Ukraine should therefore not risk introducing potentially unconstitutional selection and dismissal mechanisms in the name of openness. There are viable ways to update the procedures, including a model involving an institutionally strengthened Council of Prosecutors. The focus should be on realistic mechanisms capable of producing a constitutionally acceptable result and delivering change now, during martial law. Otherwise, the goal of depoliticising the office of Prosecutor General will remain at the level of ambitious declarations rather than be translated into functioning procedures, drawing Ukraine into a politically unproductive dispute with no practical outcome.