Ukrainian lawmakers pass legislation to create anticorruption court:
By RFE/RL
The Ukrainian parliament has passed a bill on a long-awaited anticorruption court, whose creation is a key condition in order for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to distribute more aid to the country.
Lawmakers stood up and applauded in the Verkhovna Rada on June 7 after 315 of them backed the draft law, which describes the Supreme Anticorruption Court as a permanent "higher specialized court" to be located in the capital, Kyiv.
The court's jurisdiction would be applicable to the entire territory of Ukraine, it also says.
"Today we have completed the formation of anticorruption infrastructure," President Petro Poroshenko tweeted after the vote. "I want to emphasize the resolve of the Ukrainian authorities to fight corruption."
Corruption was among top reasons that prompted Ukrainians to take to the streets and oust a Moscow-friendly regime in 2014 but it remains a major problem despite Poroshenko's promises to tackle it.
International financial institutions have provided Ukraine with billions of dollars to support its stricken economy.
The IMF has said an anticorruption court will be a "benchmark" of Ukraine's progress toward Western legal standards, and that it would help ease the release of its loans in the future.
The United States has also highlighted the importance of establishing an independent anticorruption court in Ukraine.
In a statement issued on June 5, the U.S. State Department said, "the establishment of a genuinely independent anticorruption court is the most important, immediate step the government can take to meet those demands and roll back corruption that continues to threaten Ukraine's national security, prosperity, and democratic development."
Western officials say Ukraine will be far better equipped to resist interference from Russia -- which seized Ukraine's Crimean region in 2014 and backs separatist militants who hold parts of two eastern provinces -- if it takes serious steps to combat corruption. (w/UNIAN and Christopher Miller in Kyiv)