“Ukraine’s reforms remain hostage to corrupt courts,”

“Ukraine’s reforms remain hostage to corrupt courts,” headlines an Atlantic Council article by Diane Francis, another veteran observer of Ukraine. One year into the Zelenskiy government, she writes, judicial reform “efforts are backsliding and in danger of ending entirely.” Citing intimidation of investigators and courts unwilling to take on corrupt judges, she writes: “President Zelenskiy must take on the country’s legal cabal.” By removing the 20 members of the High Council of Justice, a “culling” of judges could be done in months, not years. Otherwise, she warns: “The perpetuation of crooked courts will eventually cost Ukraine its IMF and Western support. Ukrainians will remain poor, investors will boycott, and the country will slip back under the control of oligarchs and shadowy Russian forces.”