Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
At the same time, activists call this a rather good choice.
Acting Prosecutor General of Ukraine Anton Kovalskyi 12 October signed a decree appointing lawyer Yevhen Hrushovets as a member of the Selection Commission for organizing and conducting the competition for vacant administrative positions in the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office.
As reported by the Prosecutor General’s Office, the decision to submit Yevhen Hrushovets’s candidacy to Kovalskyi for inclusion in the Selection Commission was made by the Council of Prosecutors of Ukraine on 9 October. He is to replace the odious lawyer Oleksii Shevchuk on the commission, whose powers were terminated in September.
The PG’s Office noted that after the early termination of the powers of one of the commission members, the Council of Prosecutors of Ukraine announced a selection for a candidate and, based on the results of that selection, submitted the candidacy of Yevhen Hrushovets as someone who "most fully meets the requirements of the law and the duties of a member of the Selection Commission."
Executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center Dariia Kaleniuk said that choosing Hrushovets’s candidacy is not the worst option, since among the rejected candidates "there were several figures with questionable reputations."
"Yevhen Hrushovets has experience serving on the public councils of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Ministry of Defense. It is important that Mr. Hrushovets maintain an impartial attitude toward candidates who have worked or are working on cases in which he or his association represents defense interests," she wrote on Facebook.
Kaleniuk noted that this composition of the selection commission has already begun choosing the deputy head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, and will soon begin selecting the chief anti-corruption prosecutor, since in July 2027 the term of the current SAP head Oleksandr Klymenko expires.
Head of the "Law and Order" direction at the Laboratory of Legislative Initiatives Yevhen Krapyvyn also called the choice of Hrushovets "good." In his view, Hrushovets will be able to properly balance prosecutors and international experts on the commission, since he has practical experience in criminal proceedings and understands the problems that prosecutors' leaders, including those at the SAP, need to solve.
Lawyer Yevhen Hrushovets is a partner at the law firm Ario. In 2023 he was elected to the Public Anti-Corruption Council under the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, and later became its chair.
At the same time, Yevhen Hrushovets has long been the lawyer for Serhii Pashynskyi, who recently reached a plea agreement in the NABU and SAP proceeding. During a court appearance in 2024 he stated that "if there had been more people like Pashynskyi in 2022, the situation in repelling Russian aggression would have been better."
Among his other clients was former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, and as a human rights defender he represents the families of those killed in the UIA plane crash in Iran in 2020 and the interests of victims in the B2B Jewelry financial pyramid.
Note that this renewed composition of the commission is to review applications from candidates for the position of deputy head of the SAP, the deadline for submission of whose documents ended on 5 October, and to compile the list of admitted participants.
Why the appointment of lawyer Oleksii Shevchuk to the selection commission for choosing the SAP leadership became a test of integrity, the limits of government influence, and the real independence of the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office and provoked fierce opposition — read the article by Dariia Pysarenko and Yevhen Krapyvyn "Selection commission for SAP leadership: why Shevchuk’s appointment raises questions."
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "У комісію по відбору керівника САП включили адвоката Пашинського Грушовця". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ZN.ua.