Fighting Corruption in Ukraine and Poland

When the air raid alarms go off each day in Kyiv, members of the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine assess the situation. Sometimes it’s only the alarm and no bombs, or the sirens are warning about attacks in a different district of Kyiv, says Kateryna Shyroka, one of the court’s judges and a 2018 graduate of Loyola University Chicago’s Rule of Law Institute in Rome.

After checking the internet for the severity of the situation, people in the courtroom have the option of going to the bomb shelter in the court, which is in central Kyiv, or taking shelter in a nearby metro station. “If it’s not a missile attack, we try to continue,” she says. Shyroka and another Ukrainian graduate of the Rule of Law Institute, Iryna Ivankiv (LLM, 2015), give credit to their Jesuit alma mater for helping them manage their current assignments in Ukraine and Poland, respectively. Shyroka has been a judge at the High Anti-Corruption Court since April 2019.

For more than two years, she served as an investigative judge, checking on the legitimacy of the investigative process, and working with detectives and prosecutors during pre-trial investigations. Since December 2021, she has been a trial judge, hearing cases as part of three-judge panels.

After Ukraine’s Parliament established the special court in 2018, Shyroka was vetted by the Public Council of International Experts and underwent seven months of competition ending in her being chosen as a judge. She attributes her confidence in pursuing the selective position to having attended Loyola’s Rule of Law for Development program from September 2017 to June 2018.

NOW I’M MORE CONFIDENT. I HAVE A PROACTIVE POSITION AFTER THIS EDUCATION. AFTER LOYOLA, I COMMUNICATED WITH DIFFERENT NGO ORGANIZATIONS AND CONTRIBUTED TO REVISING UKRAINIAN LEGISLATION.

She says she was the first judge from Ukraine selected for the Rome program, and it opened her eyes and helped her work for change in the Ukrainian judicial system. Some of the goals of the High Anti-Corruption Court are strengthening the rule of law and combatting corruption for economic and democratic development.

“Now I’m more confident,” Shyroka says. “I have a proactive position after this education. “I feel more confidence because I can understand what they want, and how to change the legislation for bringing the rule of law to the people,” she says.

Shyroka knew at age 12 that she wanted to become a lawyer. Even before obtaining her law license in 2006, she worked as an investigator in the Luhansk regional office of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry. In 2010, she became a judge in Luhansk’s administrative district court, hearing mostly tax and economic cases. As a judge, she has undergone training focused on asylum-seekers, environmental protection and human rights, and anti-corruption legislation.

Her work as a judge on the High Anti-Corruption Court has involved looking into corruption in the Ukrainian judicial system, which can be dangerous work. Before the Russian invasion in February 2022, someone threatened her on Facebook, and when she alerted the Supreme Council of Justice, she was assigned a bodyguard. She and other judges have various safety measures in place, including alarms in their apartments, to protect against assailants.

In May of 2023, the chief judge of Ukraine’s Supreme Court was arrested on corruption charges. He was released the following day, and the High Anti-Corruption Court was expected to hear the case.

Fellow Ukrainian and LUC alum Ivankiv works for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Warsaw. There, she coordinates a project supporting human rights defenders faced with challenging political situations.

“In all countries, in Europe and worldwide, it is fair to say that we are seeing a backsliding of democracy,”

Ivankiv says, and when that happens, human rights problems usually follow. She points to her home country, Ukraine, and what she refers to as Russian aggression beginning with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In Belarus, a lack of democratic governance has led to horrible violations of human rights, she says, including illegal imprisonments and torture, forcing many human rights defenders to relocate.

Ivankiv originally wanted to be a criminal lawyer, but at one point in her career she had an especially impactful supervisor who was also a professor of human rights. Once she started doing research of her own on human rights, she never looked back. In 2015, Ivankiv earned her Master of Law in Rule of Law for Development at the Loyola program in Rome. She began the program with experience in international projects but no formal education in how to manage a project. The Rome program gave her those skills in addition to the know-how to design a project in the first place.

HOW DO YOU ENSURE THAT YOU DO NOT DO ANY HARM TO THE COUNTRY THAT YOU WANT TO HELP?

She learned not only from her professors but her peers, as well. “This was my first experience studying and working with people from all over the world,” she says, adding that there is a “really strong community of Ukrainian alumni” from the school. One of the most important things she learned at Loyola was the answer to a very big question: “How do you ensure that you do not do any harm to the country that you want to help?”

Ivankiv joined OSCE in November 2022 after working for the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. Most of her family is still in central Ukraine, and she worries constantly, she says. “There is no safe place in Ukraine, but there are places that are safer. We communicate daily, so fortunately, they are accessible.”

Her chosen field of human rights does not divide people based on where they come from, or where they currently live, she says. It inspires people to take power into their own hands and do the right thing even when it is difficult.

Criminals must be held accountable, of course, but even heinous offenders deserve fundamental human rights. “Human dignity is something that is most important,” Ivankiv says.

The Rule of Law Institute continues to offer one-year Master of Laws (LLM) and Master of Jurisprudence (MJ) degrees in Rule of Law for Development. An option for completion over two years is also offered. The LLM program is for those applicants with a first degree in law. The MJ program is for applicants with a first degree in a different subject.

For more information, visit www.jesuitsmidwest.org/ukrainelawyers

Photos provided by Kateryna Shyroka and Irina Ivankiv.