Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky has backtracked in his controversial decision that caused him the first major nation-wide protests against the government since the start of the war against Russia.
The new bill, passed on Thursday with 331 votes, restores the independency of two anti-corruption agencies, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO). Under the previous law, passed last week and now reverted, the control of these agencies fell directly under the prosecutor general, a figure named by Zelensky, thus weakening their integrity.
That move not only threatened to reverse all advancements made in the clean up of corruption in the corruption-plagued country, but also seriously damaged their chances of joining the European Union, which asks that the country needs to actively fight corruption as a condition for their admission.
Zelensky justified the previous law by saying that the agencies had "Russian influence", but after the huge negative reaction in Ukraine and abroad, they have chosen to go back and restore their previous independence from political interference.