Surrounding the Executive Director of the Anti-Corruption Centre A debate has arisen regarding Daria Kalenyuk’s professional status. Lawyer Oleg Shram stated that he had been unable to find Kalenyuk in the Unified Register of Lawyers of Ukraine and asked on what grounds she was referred to as a lawyer in certain publications. At the same time, verified official pages of the CPC currently present Kalenyuk as an executive director with a legal education, whilst *Ukrainska Pravda* refers to her as a lawyer.
- Lawyer Oleg Shram raised a question regarding Kalenyuk’s status.
- He stated that he could not find her in the register of lawyers.
- The CPC describes Kalenyuk as a specialist with a legal background.
- No public number for Kalenyuk’s solicitor’s licence has been found.
Schram stated that he had not found Kalenyuk in the register
Lawyer Oleg Shram published a post in which he drew attention to references Daria Kalenyuk as a lawyer and stated that he had been unable to find her details in the Unified Register of Lawyers of Ukraine.
He called on Kalenyuk to explain whether she holds the relevant professional status.
At the same time, the mere absence of a surname in a standard search or third-party databases still needs to be verified against the official Unified State Register of Citizens. In the official documents available to us CPC Kalenyuk is not being represented by a lawyer: The organisation states that it has Ukrainian and international legal qualifications and 15 years’ experience in anti-corruption work.
On her blog page on «Ukrainska Pravda», Kalenyuk is also listed as «lawyer, executive director and board member of the Anti-Corruption Centre».
A lawyer and a solicitor are different professional statuses
Under Ukrainian law, a law degree does not in itself confer the status of a solicitor.
The Law «On the Bar and the Practice of Law» stipulates that a lawyer must, amongst other things, pass a qualifying examination, complete the procedure laid down by law, take the oath and to obtain a certificate authorising the practice of law. Information about lawyers is entered into the Unified Register of Lawyers of Ukraine.
Kalenyuk has a law degree: she studied in Ukraine and obtained an LL.M. in financial services law from Chicago-Kent College of Law in the USA. This is confirmed by both the CPC and her professional profiles.
At the same time, the English word lawyer, which appeared in some older English-language publications by the CPC, does not necessarily refer specifically to the Ukrainian professional title «advocate» — it is also used to mean «lawyer». In one of the CPC’s 2018 articles, Kalenyuk was indeed referred to as lawyer.
Kalenyuk is standing for a seat on the selection committee for the leadership of the SAP
The question arose shortly after it emerged that Kalenyuk had submitted her application to the selection panel responsible for appointing the leadership of the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.
On 15 September, she applied for the vacant position on the six-member selection panel. The CPC highlights her legal background and previous experience of working on selection panels at the NABU and the SAP.
At the same time, the requirement to have specifically status as a solicitor The CPC’s announcement does not specify a candidate for this commission. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between the issue of how Kalenyuk is portrayed in publications and the issue of compliance with the formal requirements of the competition.
What is known about the case concerning international aid funds
Separately, claims are circulating in the media regarding the alleged «theft of 188 million hryvnias» by the Anti-Corruption Centre.
There are currently no grounds for presenting this statement as an established fact. In July, the Centre for Political Analysis published a letter from the State Bureau of Investigation, which suggests that the Bureau is conducting a pre-trial investigation into the possible misappropriation of international technical assistance funds Vitaliy Shabunin and Daria Kalenyuk. In other words, this concerns an investigation, not a case of theft that has been established in court.
The CPC itself states that the relevant proceedings had previously been closed in 2016 due to the absence of a criminal offence, and that, according to the organisation, it had not received any of the funds referred to in the case. The proceedings were subsequently reopened.
The statement specifically concerns 188 million hryvnias This figure was previously reported in the media, citing veteran Volodymyr Boiko; however, in the available official statement from the State Bureau of Investigation (DBR) regarding the Central Public Procurement Agency, this sum has not been confirmed as the established amount of misappropriated funds.
