Oleksandr BELOV1
T
he system of democratic civilian control presents an important element of Ukraine’s security sector management. The national legislation, first of all, the Law “On Democratic Civilian Control of the Military Organisation and Law-Enforcement Bodies of the State”, does not separately define the notion of the security sector, but the Ukrainian expert community views it in the context of the European tradition. According to it, the security sector is to include civilian organisations that study or provide advice on security issues:public organisations, independent think-tanks, scientific research institutes, the expert community, and mass media.
In democratic countries of the world, including Ukraine, civilian experts outside the state machinery begin to play a more profound role in democratic control of the national security sector. Analysis of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) experience enables distinction of a few lines of interaction with civil society institutes, including the expert community.
The first line is the practice of building societal awareness about the activity of the internal security services, such as the SBU. The importance of that activity was stressed by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Recommendations 1402/1999 (“Control of internal security services in Council of Europe member states”) and 1713/2005 (“Democratic oversight of the security sector in member states”).
Noteworthy, public information about SBU activity started long before the adoption of PACE Recommendation 1402 in 1999. The current Law “On Security Service of Ukraine,” passed by Parliament on March 25, 1992, contains relevant norms that deserve to be quoted.
Specifically, Article 7, the “Public right to know about the Security Service of Ukraine Activity” in the basic wording of that national legislative act of March 25, 1992:
The Ukrainian public is informed about the Security Service of Ukraine activity via mass media and in other forms in accordance with the procedure established by the law.
It is banned to impose restrictions on information about the total budget of the Security Service of Ukraine, its competence and main lines of activity, and instances of unlawful acts by the Security Service of Ukraine bodies and officers.
Data constituting state, military and commercial secrets, as well as information of a confidential nature, the disclosure of which may cause harm to the national security of Ukraine, honour and dignity of a person or violate his or her legitimate rights shall not be disclosed, except cases envisaged by the law in the interests of justice.
1 Adviser to the Chief of the Security Service of Ukraine.
INTERNAL SECURITY
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Speaking during the bill’s consideration in the Verkhovna Rada on January 30, 1992, the National Security Service of Ukraine chief Yevhen Marchuk stressed the importance of the above fundamental provisions of Article 7: “Specific of the bill is that it provides some opportunities for the National Security Service control by society beyond the framework of usual state structures. Here, an important role is played by the so-called fourth estate – mass media”.2
Noteworthy, at the time of adoption of the Law “On Security Service of Ukraine”, its structure already included a Press Centre led by V. Oliynyk. Subsequent heads also contributed to its work: А. Sakhno (1992-2000), О. Skrupnyk (2000-2005), M. Ostapenko, leading the SBU Public Relations Department since 2005.
Over 20 years, more than 20 amendments were made to the Law “On Security Service of Ukraine” but the quoted legislative norm has not been revised.
I am absolutely positive that principled stand of the state political leadership will be retained in the new wording of the law “On Security Service of Ukraine”. The bill is being drafted on instructions from Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych in pursuance of Ukraine’s commitments to the Council of Europe.
Every citizen can personally learn about the practice of observance of norms of Article 7 of the Law “On Security Service of Ukraine” at the SBU official website,3 accessed daily by over 7’000 users of the Web (almost 1.6 million a year). The SBU leadership highly praises especially constructive, critical comments and proposals.
It is hard to disagree with the known Canadian expert in state policy Leslie A. Pal who noted that criticism should be target-minded and well-intentioned. In this context,
“good intention” is determined not by an expert’s personal temperament but his professional competence, awareness of his involvement in a common cause. In our case, such common cause is to build a modern system of national and state security of Ukraine on democratic fundamentals and principles.
In fact, it is one of the forms of public participation in management of state affairs. That right is a firm constitutional norm (Article 38 of the current Constitution of Ukraine) that has remained unvaried since the adoption of the Basic Law. Concrete forms of exercise of that constitutional norm are always in the focus of the state political leadership. In 1996-2012, more than 15 regulatory-legal acts dealing with those issues were adopted, including ten Decrees of the President of Ukraine.4
Item 5.4.4 of the new wording of Ukraine’s National Security Strategy (2012) termed “involvement of civil society institutes in formulation and implementation of the national security policy…assessment of its efficiency” as one of the key lines of the national security sector reform.
One of the mechanisms of SBU interaction with civil society institutes is presented by the Public Council under SBU set up in 2006 pursuant to the President of Ukraine Directive.5 Noteworthy, its analogue never existed prior. On November 25, 1991,
2 At a plenary sitting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on January 30, 1992, the bill was presented by the National Security Service of Ukraine Head Yevhen Marchuk. Den, March 23, 2012, www.day.kiev.ua/uk/article/
podrobici/na-plenarnomu-zasidanni-verhovnoyi-radi-ukrayini-30-sichnya-1992-roku-zakonoproekt (in Ukrainian).
3 SBU official website, www.ssu.gov.ua.
4 In 2012, Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych issued the following Decrees on those matters:
“Issues of Promotion of Civil Society Development in Ukraine” that set up the Coordinating Council for Civil Society Development under the President of Ukraine (No. 32 of January 25, 2012); “On Strategy of the State Policy of Promotion of Civil Society Development in Ukraine and Immediate Measures at Its Implementation”
(No. 212 of March 24, 2012); “On the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine Decision” (of June 8, 2012), and “On the New Wording of the Strategy of National Security of Ukraine” (No. 389 of June 8, 2012).
5 President of Ukraine Directive No.269 of July 20, 2006 “On Public Council under the Security Service of Ukraine”. Regulations of Public Council: www.ssu.gov.ua/sbu/control/uk/publish/article?art_id=114732&cat_
id=52170 (in Ukrainian).
Internal Security А the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine chairman Leonid Kravchuk by Directive No.1859-ХІІ set up the National Security Service of Ukraine Board that included national deputies of Ukraine Henrykh Altunian, Mykhailo Horyn, Yuriy Kostenko, V. Lemish, and V. Slobodeniuk.
The Public Council is now led by the People’s Deputy (MP) of Ukraine, a member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine National Security and Defence Committee Yuriy Samoilenko. The Public Council includes learned experts: Dmytro Vedeneev (Deputy Director of the Ukrainian National Memory Institute), Oleksandr Vlasiuk (Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine), Larysa Ivshyna (Chief Editor of the Den newspaper), Serhiy Kozyakov (Associate Professor of the Institute of International Relations of Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University), Yuriy Lavreniuk (leader of the public organisation “All-Ukrainian Collegium for Fighting Corruption and Organised Crime”), Oksana Markeyeva (acting Deputy Director of the National Institute for Strategic Studies), Yuriy Sorochyk (Secretariat Head of the Verkhovna Rada Ukraine Committee for Fighting Organised Crime and Corruption), and Yuriy Yakymenko (Deputy General Director of Razumkov Centre).
What is expected from the Public Council’s activity? At a meeting on November 22, 2012, SBU Chief Ihor Kalinin said that the Service leadership sought
“a continuous open dialogue, possibly, a discussion, joint search of answers to the questions: what a modern special service should be like, what its relations with society should be”? In fact, these are the conceptual expectations of the Security Service, and they coincide with the stand of the Public Council leadership and members.
Public representatives’ awareness of their common responsibility makes their role in events of civilian democratic control of the Security Service activity and reformation more constructive. This was noted by the Public Council members and the Service executives at the Council’s meeting in November 2012. The relevant provisions are also contained in its work plan for 2013 (approved at the Public Council meeting on December 26, 2012) that, in particular, envisages:
• continuous control of observance of human rights and freedoms in the SBU activity;
• participation in drafting of the new wording of the Law “On Security Service of Ukraine”, primarily, organisation of its public discussion;
• better information of the public about the Security Service activity and measures at building public confidence in it;
• assistance with provision of the proper level of social protection for its officers, required logistic, legal and information support for their work;
• participation in civic education and training of the new generation of the Service operatives.
There are grounds to expect that the SBU Public Council will provide an efficient tool of modern democratic civilian control.6
There is also a pressing issue of better training civilian experts who can be efficient mediators between SBU, on one hand, and society, on the other. The existence of some problems there becomes evident from even a brief analysis of the Ukrainian-language Internet segment content. At the end of November 2012, there were over 400 000 webpages with various information about the SBU, mainly reports of some events dealing with SBU activity. The Ukrainian media experience a shortage
6 The prospects of cooperation were discussed at the international seminar “Civilian control of secu-rity sector: how to improve the activity of the Public Council” organised by SBU with support from NATO Information and Documentation Centre in Ukraine and active participation of the SBU Public Council on December 11, 2012, in Kyiv, www.sbu.gov.ua/sbu/control/uk/publish/article;jsessionid=5ACF164C9B8F962 0D1760FB420171829? art_id=114875&cat_id=39574.
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of analytical expert materials assessing the state of Ukraine’s national security, domestic and international aspects of the state security policy. For comparison, after the National Counterintelligence Strategy adoption in the US in 2009, the university and expert community immediately reacted to that document, offering some 80 programmes of civilian expert training in economic security, international relations, geopolitics, as the example that should be followed.
In civilian expert training in the field of national and state security, an important role belongs to the annual international scientific-practical conference “Defence of democratic values and observance of human rights in special service activity” arranged by the Security Service of Ukraine under the auspices of the Head of State since 2008.
Its co-sponsors included the National Institute of Strategic Studies under the President of Ukraine, the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), NATO Liaison Office and NATO Information and Documentation Centre in Ukraine, the Organisations for Security and Cooperation in Europe Mission to Ukraine, leading Ukrainian higher educational establishments. All in all, since 2008, almost 150 foreign and Ukrainian experts have taken part in the conference. The general content of discussions and passed recommendations may be found at the SBU official web site.
In his greeting to the organisers and participants of the third conference (April 2010), Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych expressed hope that “the problem of equilibrium between the society right to security and human rights…is to find a harmonious solution at formation of the Ukrainian national legislation, reformation of the law-enforcement and judicial system of this country in line with democratic traditions”.
Thanks to the conferences, Ukrainian experts for five years learned the relevant experience of the US, the United Kingdom, Germany, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium and other countries of the European and Euro-Atlantic community. A special role in dissemination of advanced international experience belongs to DCAF and its leadership and its head, Dr. Philipp Fluri.
In 2011 and 2012, the conferences were hosted by the National University
“Yaroslav the Wise Law Academy of Ukraine” and Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University with support from their principals Vasyl Tatsiy and Leonid Huberskyi.
Starting from 2011, the Security Service of Ukraine arranges a competition for the best paper on democratic civilian control. Its winners included over 60 students and young scientists (including from the SBU National Academy and Institute of Legal Staff Training for SBU). This looks very promising.
In his annual Address to the Verkhovna Rada, “On Internal and External Situation of Ukraine in 2012”, Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych paid particular attention to the importance of efficient outside control as a reliable safeguard against taking advantage of the ample opportunities for the security sector in corporate interests, to the detriment of society and the state. Meanwhile, the head of state stressed that,
“civilian democratic control is not only the right of oversight and inspection but also shared responsibility”.7
The above examples illustrate quite clearly consistent steps of the state and the Security Service of Ukraine leadership building a modern system of democratic civilian control of the security sector and constructive interaction with such its elements as civil society institutes, in particular the civilian expert community.
7 On Internal and External Situation of Ukraine in 2012: annual Address of the President of Ukraine to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Kyiv, NISS, 2012. pp. 208-210 – www.president.gov.ua/docs/posl.pdf (in Ukrainian).
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