Following public discussions and several scandals surrounding the drafts of the Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2026–2030 (ACS), deliberations in key parliamentary committees and comments received from state institutions, Members of Parliament registered a revised draft anti-corruption policy document — Draft Law No. 15230-d. It takes into account the conclusions of committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (VRU), comments by the Main Scientific and Expert Department (MSED) of the VRU and other comments on the previous draft laws. The document also incorporates the interim benchmarks (IBMs) for Cluster 1 ‘Fundamentals of the Accession Process’.
According to the explanatory note to Draft Law No. 15230-d, the main provisions that have strengthened the revised draft ACS include:
- cross-cutting alignment of the draft with the provisions of the Rule of Law Roadmap and the interim benchmarks for Cluster 1 ‘Fundamentals of the Accession Process’;
- supplementing the Preamble with the principles underpinning the Strategy, which will help preserve its vision for the future;
- supplementing the problem related to the identification, tracing and management of assets derived from corruption and other crimes;
- supplementing subsection 2.1 (Judiciary and the Status of Judges) with the fundamental problem of financial support for the judiciary and transferring to this subsection the problem of the institutional resilience and capacity of the High Anti-Corruption Court;
- systemic improvement of provisions in the areas of taxation and customs;
- including corruption-related issues in the strategically important forestry sector in the draft;
- revising subsection 2.16 (Education and Science) as a foundation for fostering Ukraine’s human and innovation capital.
The Anti-Corruption Strategy is a document that defines the principles and priorities of state anti-corruption policy for the next five years. It is developed by the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) and adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The Strategy should be based on a systemic analysis of the corruption situation and the results of implementing the previous strategy. Subsequently, to implement the ACS, the Government develops and approves a clear action plan — the State Anti-Corruption Programme.
This is Ukraine’s third strategic anti-corruption policy document. The first strategy was approved on 14 October 2014 for the period until the end of 2017. The next strategy covered 2021–2025, but the relevant law was adopted by Parliament only in June 2022. As a result, only three years effectively remained to achieve the expected results. The State Anti-Corruption Programme for 2023–2025 has been partially implemented and remains in force until a new one is approved.
In May, three draft laws on the principles of state anti-corruption policy for 2026–2030 were registered in the Verkhovna Rada (Draft Law No. 15230, Draft Law No. 15230-1 and Draft Law No. 15230-2). ALI published its expert analysis of some of the differences between them and recommendations on the most appropriate ways to improve anti-corruption policy.
Following revision of these draft laws by the Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy, a decision was taken (pursuant to Part 2 Article 110 of the Law of Ukraine ‘On the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine’) to submit the revised version of the Anti-Corruption Strategy to Parliament for consideration. An analysis of its key provisions is provided below.
Countering Corruption and Corruption-Related Offences
The list of problems previously identified in this area remains unchanged. As in the previous versions, it is proposed, among other things, to clarify the grounds for holding persons authorised to perform the functions of the state or local self-government disciplinarily liable.
Some expected strategic results have undergone significant changes. Thus, previous versions of the ACS envisaged that, following legislative amendments, a person could be held disciplinarily liable if, in particular, a court found the corruption-related administrative offence committed by that person to be minor or closed the case because the time limit for imposing an administrative penalty had expired. We have already noted that such an approach may lead to a violation of the presumption of innocence.
The revised version of the ACS no longer contains these grounds. It retains the provision that public servants are held disciplinarily liable on the basis of a final court decision holding the person administratively liable for a corruption-related administrative offence.
Pursuant to Part 2 Article 65-1 of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Prevention of Corruption’, an official who has committed a corruption offence or a corruption-related offence is subject to disciplinary liability where the court has not imposed on that person a penalty or sanction in the form of deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities related to the performance of state or local self-government functions.
In the Criminal Code of Ukraine (CC of Ukraine) and the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences (CUAO), deprivation of this right is defined as an additional penalty/sanction. Therefore, it is the court that, having assessed all the circumstances of the case, imposes the principal penalty or sanction (usually a fine) and may also impose an additional penalty/sanction where this is provided for by the sanction of the relevant article of the CC of Ukraine or the CUAO.
If the relevant article does not provide for such an additional penalty/sanction, or if the court has not imposed it, a disciplinary sanction should be imposed on the person.
The ACS proposes expanding the list of grounds for holding public servants disciplinarily liable for violations of anti-corruption legislation. ALI experts believe that such legislative amendments will not resolve the existing problem but, on the contrary, will exacerbate it (problem 1.9.1).
The brief description of this problem states that its causes include, in particular:
- imperfect legislation on the disciplinary liability of public servants and its inconsistency with anti-corruption legislation;
- failure by managers and bodies authorised to impose disciplinary liability to apply the above-mentioned provisions of Article 65-1 of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Prevention of Corruption’.
If laws establish that a separate ground for holding public servants disciplinarily liable is the entry into force of a court decision holding them administratively liable for committing a corruption-related offence, this is unlikely to affect the practice of applying disciplinary sanctions. Therefore, achieving this strategic result will not resolve the problem.
At this stage, it appears more appropriate to improve the time limits and procedures for holding persons disciplinarily liable and to provide guidance on applying anti-corruption legislation in relation to holding persons liable.
Previous versions of the draft ACS (expected strategic result 1.9.1.1 for problem 1.9.1) provided that a final court decision holding a person criminally, administratively or civilly liable should constitute an unconditional ground for dismissing that person from public service (office) outside the disciplinary procedure.
The MSED of the VRU Secretariat has already made a number of pertinent comments on this provision, including the observation that an attempt to circumvent disciplinary proceedings deprives a person of procedural safeguards ensuring individualisation of guilt and proportionality of the sanction. Court materials may be used in a disciplinary investigation rather than serving as an automatic and unconditional ground for dismissal outside the disciplinary procedure.
It should also be added that this dismissal procedure effectively negates the additional penalty/sanction of deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities in the context of violations of anti-corruption legislation.
The revised version of the Strategy states that the legislative grounds for disciplinary liability for violations of anti-corruption legislation should be improved, in particular by ‘establishing unconditional grounds for dismissal from service (office) outside the disciplinary procedure for any category of persons authorised to perform the functions of the state or local self-government’.
It should be noted that this wording is overly broad and vague compared with the previous version. In addition, unconditional grounds for dismissal from public service (office) are already defined both by the Labour Code of Ukraine (Articles 36 and 40) and by laws governing the specific features of particular types of public service (for example, Article 87 of the Law ‘On Civil Service’, Article 51 of the Law ‘On the Public Prosecutor’s Office’, etc.).
Therefore, this expected result needs to be clarified to specify that a public servant is subject to dismissal where a court has imposed an additional penalty/sanction in the form of deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities, as well as where the assets of that person, assets acquired by other persons on their instructions or assets in other cases provided for by Article 290 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine have been recognised as unjustified and recovered to the State.
The wording of expected strategic result 1.9.3.3 concerning the improvement of the procedure for holding persons administratively liable for corruption-related offences has also been changed in this section. Whereas previous versions of the ACS envisaged extending the time limits for imposing an administrative penalty, the current wording is less clear: reviewing the time limits for imposing a penalty for such offences.
In implementing the Anti-Corruption Strategy, this wording may result in these time limits being revised either upwards or downwards, which could, on the contrary, worsen the practice of holding persons administratively liable for corruption-related offences.
The new version of the ACS retains the expected strategic result concerning the Supreme Court’s generalisation of case law in cases of corruption-related administrative offences, about which ALI has already expressed reservations.
Judiciary and the Status of Judges (Including the HACC)
The section of the ACS devoted to these issues has undergone significant changes.
First and foremost, the problems identified in the activities of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) have been moved to this section. This is the right decision, as the HACC is part of the judiciary. The provisions concerning the anti-corruption court themselves have not changed and envisage introducing single-judge consideration of civil and administrative cases, mechanisms to prevent participants in criminal proceedings from abusing procedural rights and the possibility of continuing consideration of a case where one of the three judges on a HACC panel or the Appeal Chamber of the HACC is replaced. The draft ACS also emphasises filling vacant judicial positions and providing permanent premises for judges of the HACC at first instance and in its Appeal Chamber. Implementation of these measures is already under way.
The updated draft ACS somewhat changes the approaches to the participation of international experts in the selection of members of the High Council of Justice (HCJ) and the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine (HQCJ). Whereas the first version (Draft Law No. 15230) expressly provided international experts with a decisive vote, the revised ACS states that selection should be transparent, predictable and improved where necessary, ‘with the temporary involvement of independent experts delegated by international partners, in accordance with paragraph 23.2.1 of the interim benchmarks for Cluster 1 “Fundamentals of the Accession Process”’.
Despite the obvious need to gradually move towards replacing international experts with national experts, at this stage it is still too early for Ukraine to take this step, as ALI has previously emphasised, primarily because judicial self-governance bodies have not yet been reformed. At the same time, the ACS draws attention to the need to fill all vacant positions of HCJ and HQCJ members within timeframes that ensure the uninterrupted functioning of these bodies.
The revised draft ACS changes the approach to addressing problems in the work of the Council of Judges of Ukraine (CJU), namely: ‘The mechanism for forming the Council of Judges of Ukraine is insufficiently regulated and needs to be improved by establishing the term of office of its members, increasing the transparency of candidate selection processes and defining mechanisms for involving the judicial community in discussing and electing members of the Council’. It is proposed to address the problem by increasing the transparency of the processes for selecting candidates for CJU membership (including through advance publication of information about candidates, etc.), determining the term of office of the Council and its members and establishing the grounds and mechanism for early termination of their powers. At the same time, this judicial self-governance body should be elected by secret electronic voting in which all judges participate. The revised version deserves support.
The main problems arising in the work of the National School of Judges of Ukraine (NSJU) are formulated somewhat differently, although the substance of the original expected strategic results has been preserved. In particular, its activities need to be improved to strengthen mechanisms for accountability to the HQCJ, introduce competitive selection for management positions and ensure transparency in the NSJU’s activities. These provisions deserve support. Moreover, similar problems and ways of addressing them are described in the report of the TAIEX mission that audited the NSJU and the Prosecutors’ Training Centre of Ukraine.
The problem of ineffective mechanisms for rotating judges who hold administrative positions in courts (primarily court presidents), which results in judges holding administrative positions for prolonged periods, is formulated more clearly. However, unlike some other provisions of the ACS, no specific proposals are made here for addressing the problem.
Draft Law No. 15230-2 proposed improving the work of the Public Integrity Council, which, in accordance with the recommendations of the Venice Commission (European Commission for Democracy through Law), should be given a statutory role in a system that balances public and state participation in judicial selection, where civil society strengthens transparency but does not substitute for the institutional decision of the judiciary. This provision is absent from the revised draft ACS, although it deserves the support of Members of Parliament during the plenary vote.
The revised draft ACS broadens the approach to ensuring the full functioning of e-justice. In particular, provisions have been added on ensuring electronic court proceedings through the development of the Unified Judicial Information and Communication System (UJICS) and the introduction of analytical tools to prevent, identify and respond to possible abuses (including in the automated distribution of cases, access to information in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions and atypical workloads of courts or individual judges in particular categories of cases).
At the same time, the ongoing development of the UJICS should be supported by adequate financial resources (from the State Budget of Ukraine) and human resources, taking into account the needs of courts and other bodies and institutions of the justice system. This approach deserves support.
The scope of publicly available information about the judicial system has also been expanded. In particular, regular publication of minutes (decisions) of meetings of judges and court statistics broken down by individual court should be ensured.
The revised draft ACS also contains a number of new but debatable proposals. For example, the draft proposes establishing a procedure for publishing practical assignments completed by candidates for judicial office and their criterion-by-criterion assessment. It is not entirely clear what purpose this serves. Candidates who disagree with their scores already challenge them before the Supreme Court. Candidates who are satisfied with their scores proceed to the next stage. What problems the publication of all assignments and all assessments is intended to resolve remains a matter for discussion.
It is also proposed to standardise the rules for interviewing candidates for judicial office. It should be borne in mind that procedures for selecting judges for different instances (and even for some jurisdictions) differ significantly. Therefore, interviews should be standardised within the same procedure.
A significant addition to the draft ACS is the problem of insufficient financial and human resources for the judicial system (problem 2.1.10). To address it, the draft proposes ensuring competitive levels of judicial remuneration and salaries for court staff and staff of other bodies and institutions of the justice system, taking into account workload and the importance and responsibility of the work.
Under the Law of Ukraine ‘On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges’, judicial remuneration is calculated in multiples of the subsistence minimum for able-bodied persons established by the State Budget for the relevant year. Despite the increase in this indicator (UAH 3,328 in 2026), the base used to calculate judicial remuneration has remained unchanged since 2021, because laws on the State Budget establish a separate subsistence minimum for calculating judicial remuneration.
The judicial community itself raised this issue at the XX Regular Congress of Judges of Ukraine in March this year, while the Supreme Court submitted a constitutional petition to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine seeking to have such restrictions declared unconstitutional (registration No. 4/308(26) of 02.06.2026).
Prosecution Service (Including SAPO)
A comparison of the provisions of the revised ACS with the previous versions as regards the prosecution service shows continuity in the key ideas: most of the identified problems and expected strategic results have been retained without significant changes. At the same time, the new version clarifies certain provisions in light of European integration commitments and the interim benchmarks for Chapter 23 ‘Judiciary and Fundamental Rights’ of Cluster 1 ‘Fundamentals of the Accession Process’.
Whereas the previous version envisaged resuming competitions for positions of prosecutors at the Office of the Prosecutor General and regional prosecutor’s offices in accordance with the European Commission’s recommendations, the new version of the ACS directly links this result to paragraph 23.2 of the interim benchmarks for Cluster 1 ‘Fundamentals of the Accession Process’. The relevant requirement therefore receives a more specific normative basis within Ukraine’s negotiations with the European Union.
The mechanism and approaches to improving the procedure for appointing and dismissing the Prosecutor General have changed substantially in the revised ACS. The new version acknowledges that the current procedure for appointing and dismissing the Prosecutor General carries risks of informal or political influence and needs to be improved in line with Ukraine’s European commitments. This time, however, the strategic result is formulated in general terms: it envisages ensuring a more transparent and merit-based procedure for selecting the Prosecutor General in accordance with paragraph 23.2 of the interim benchmarks for Cluster 1 ‘Fundamentals of the Accession Process’.
Unlike certain previous legislative initiatives, the ACS does not prescribe a particular model for implementing European integration commitments — an open competition for the position or another mechanism for reducing political influence. This approach gives the legislator greater scope to choose a specific mechanism for appointing the Prosecutor General, provided that the principles set out in the Strategy — transparency, merit-based selection and compliance with Ukraine’s European commitments — are observed. ALI analysed different models for improving the procedure for appointing and dismissing the Prosecutor General, their compliance with European standards, constitutional aspects and possible implementation scenarios in Ukraine in the analytical note ‘Depoliticising the Procedure for Appointing and Dismissing the Prosecutor General: European Models, Constitutional Aspects and Possible Scenarios for Ukraine’.
Particular attention should be paid to the approach to improving the system for evaluating prosecutors’ performance. The revised version, like the previous versions, envisages using evaluation results to make personnel and management decisions, as well as decisions on bonuses.
Unlike Draft Law No. 15230-2, which envisaged the possibility of using evaluation results as grounds for disciplinary action, the revised ACS contains no such possibility. This is consistent with the nature of evaluation as a human resources management and professional development tool rather than a mechanism for imposing liability. ALI’s concerns on this issue have been taken into account.
As regards the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), the expected strategic result concerning granting its Head the power to independently enter information into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations on the possible commission of a criminal offence by a Member of Parliament of Ukraine and to approve motions considered by an investigating judge has undergone significant changes.
The wording itself is aligned with the interim benchmarks for Cluster 1 ‘Fundamentals of the Accession Process’. This indicates that the previously proposed concept of expanding the procedural autonomy of the Head of SAPO has been retained while being adapted to the European integration framework.
At the same time, criticism concerning the existing political obstacles has been taken into account. As a reminder, in its previous expert analysis ALI noted that ‘if there are political obstacles to MPs supporting the ACS for 2026–2030, this provision may currently be removed from the draft, provided that it is revisited later: either when there is an actual set of cases in which the Prosecutor General has disregarded well-founded materials from the NABU and SAPO, or if a new convocation of the VRU does not feel “burdened” by the political compromise reached earlier’. A less categorical position makes it possible to secure political support for the revised Anti-Corruption Strategy.
The Bar
As noted previously, the inclusion of the Bar in the ACS for 2026–2030 reflects the relevance of this issue in the context of European integration: development of the Bar is addressed in the Rule of Law Roadmap. Although the Bar is an independent self-governing institution, the legal profession is subject to state regulation. Given the corruption risks existing within the Bar (obtaining a practising certificate, non-transparent budgets, etc.) and systemic problems (the ‘continuity’ of Bar self-governance bodies since 2022, the failure to delegate two members to the HCJ and one to the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors, etc.), it has become part of state policy on European integration, and the issue now also concerns anti-corruption policy and justice policy.
For the first time, the Bar appears in the draft ACS as a separate, fully fledged subsection — alongside the courts and the prosecution service. This makes it possible to align anti-corruption policy with the Constitution, the logic of justice system reform and Ukraine’s commitments to the EU.
Corruption risks in the justice sector are systemic and are not limited to the courts and the prosecution service. No matter how extensively the courts and prosecution service are reformed, ignoring the Bar in the State’s anti-corruption policy means reproducing corrupt practices across the system as a whole. Even from a formal perspective, under Section VIII of the Constitution of Ukraine, the Bar forms part of the justice system alongside the courts and the prosecution service. Including the Bar in the ACS is therefore a logical and necessary step.
In the section on the Bar, the key problems and expected results have not changed and minor textual amendments do not require analysis. This reflects the consistent approach taken in all three previous drafts of the Anti-Corruption Strategy, which differed somewhat in the level of detail used to describe the problems and in the wording of the expected results, while the substance of the identified corruption risks and approaches to addressing them has remained unchanged.
Law Enforcement Agencies (Including the NABU)
The list of identified problems in the activities of the National Police of Ukraine (NPU), the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has not changed.
With regard to the NABU, the revised draft ACS largely contains the expected strategic results set out in Draft Law No. 15230-2, with minor adjustments. These concern strengthening the NABU’s independence and institutional resilience by building a highly professional and integrity-driven team through open and transparent competitions and establishing effective communication between the body and the public, including through the Public Oversight Council.
ALI has previously pointed out that these additions are not substantiated, as neither the media nor reports on the NABU’s activities nor the results of inspections of the body over the past five years mention problems with the openness and transparency of competitions for NABU positions or insufficient effectiveness of its communication with the public.
In June this year, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the Communication Strategy for Preventing and Combating Corruption for 2026–2030 (Communication Strategy) and the Operational Action Plan for its implementation in 2026–2028. These documents are aimed at improving the effectiveness of communication in the anti-corruption sector as a whole and, in particular, of the NABU as part of that sector. The introductory section of the Communication Strategy states that, according to opinion polls, the public is most aware of the NABU’s activities (compared with SAPO and the HACC).
Adding problems or measures to the Anti-Corruption Strategy without proper substantiation is inconsistent with Part 4 Article 18 of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Prevention of Corruption’, under which a new ACS must be developed on the basis of an analysis of the corruption situation and the results of implementing the previous strategy.
Problems with personnel selection in the NPU and SBI remain, but they have been separated into distinct items. Whereas previously the focus was exclusively on risks in the existing procedures for selecting the heads of these bodies, the revised ACS points to risks of non-transparent appointment and promotion within the NPU more broadly.
To address this problem, it is proposed to make a phased transition to appointments to managerial positions in the NPU, including in central and territorial bodies, exclusively through competitive selection with the involvement of independent experts.
These proposals dilute the proposed solution, because they concern different selection procedures (initial selection, selection for managerial positions and selection of the head of the body). Whereas previous versions proposed introducing a merit-based competition for the position of Head of the NPU and assessing candidates for other managerial positions against criteria of professionalism and integrity, the current proposal focuses on determining in advance the composition of competition (personnel) commissions rather than the key objective of improving competitive selection procedures. Competition commissions differ across bodies and there is no universal model.
Under the current provisions of the Law of Ukraine ‘On the National Police’, the NPU already has competitive selection procedures involving police commissions. At both central and regional level, such commissions must include two representatives of the public delegated by the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights (for the central apparatus) or by a regional-level local self-government body (for a territorial body) — in other words, independent experts representing civil society.
However, competitions are mandatory only for persons entering police service for the first time. The transfer of a police officer to a higher position, including a managerial position, may take place on the basis of attestation or a competition, at the discretion of the manager authorised to make the appointment.
Moreover, the Law contains no direct requirement to assess candidates for service in the NPU or for promotion against the integrity criterion, nor does it define a procedure for selecting the Head of the NPU. This is precisely the problem that needs to be addressed in implementing anti-corruption policy.
However, the wording of the revised draft ACS does not make clear which independent experts are meant (national experts or experts delegated by international organisations) or whether competitive selection of candidates for central and territorial managerial positions should include a stage assessing their integrity and professional ethics. In this respect, therefore, the wording proposed by the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (Draft Law No. 15230) appears clearer and more achievable.
The problem of strengthening the institutional independence of the SBI is set out separately in the revised version, as it was in Draft Law No. 15230-2. In addition to improving the competition for the position of Director of the Bureau, it is also proposed to introduce periodic external audits of the SBI’s activities, with an adverse audit finding serving as grounds for the early dismissal of the body’s leadership.
This addition is appropriate and consistent with Ukraine’s European integration commitments, as well as with the general concept of oversight of specialised bodies investigating criminal offences under a similar model (the NABU and the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine).
Conclusions
Overall, the revised draft Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2026–2030 incorporates a significant number of comments made by experts. The provisions of the ACS have largely been aligned with the Rule of Law Roadmap and the interim benchmarks for Cluster 1 ‘Fundamentals of the Accession Process’. However, some expected strategic results still require clarification.
It should be recalled that the Anti-Corruption Strategy is not only a requirement of anti-corruption legislation and a prerequisite for stable and progressive anti-corruption policy, but also one of Ukraine’s commitments to international partners, referred to in the conditions for EU accession, the Ukraine Facility Plan and the Extended Fund Facility programme.
