Why after nine years of Ukrainian independence are customs rudeness and extortion still rife?

It can be stated with certainty that many of us going abroad anticipate with dread dealing with our customs and border guards. To be fair, our side of the border has also seen gradual improvements: green line (nothing to declare) capacity is on the rise, as are the amounts of things that need not be declared, and the waiting lines have become shorter. But virtually everyone of us have also happened to have seen different things: at best rudeness of officers in the line of duty and at worst subtle or overt, almost undisguised, demands a bribe. We can remember many things: an innocent request to unpack everything because of a suspiciously small amount declared, the ransacking of a whole train compartment because one of the passengers was on a business trip, or a several kilometers dash of passengers to get on a different train without any lucid explanations from the border guards.

All this not only frays the nerves of our compatriots and practically shocks foreigners. It is also a powerful blow to this country’s image. The moral losses of individuals turn into the material losses of state. And our tacit acceptance of petty rudeness and extortion is the breeding ground of such not so pleasant things — not, of course, without the aid of those who breed them, the executive bodies and individual bureaucrats.

As is evidenced from a study conducted by the Razumkov Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Research, 60.5% of those polled know about concrete instances when they or their acquaintances had to make use of their legitimate rights by means of a bribe. In addition, asked whether they think many bureaucrats take bribes in office, about 60% of those polled answered yes.

The Day received recently a letter from Lviv oblast-based Larysa Patsai. Having won a US immigration green card, Ms. Patsai was to go for an interview to the US Embassy in Warsaw, where she was to produce her original birth and marriage certificates, children’s birth certificates, diploma, and employment record. However, en route to Warsaw, Larysa was, in her own words, “gripped by the throat and got her money snatched away.” This happened by no means in a dark forest or on a highway but at the Mostyska checkpoint during a routine examination. As the letter’s author claims, what aroused the customs officer’s “suspicions” was the fact that Ms. Patsai was taking to Warsaw documents mentioned. She was told she had no right to carry such documents over the border. When the lady tried to protest, the customs officer threatened her, “If you don’t shut up, I’ll put you off the train and have a criminal case opened.”

Incidentally, as Leonid Kozyk, chief of the analysis, forecast, and PR department of the State Customs Service, told The Day, under order No. 99/252 of August 22, 1994, On Approving the Instruction on the Procedure of Taking Test-Based, Audio- and Audio-Visual Materials across the State Border of Ukraine, issued by the State Committee of Ukraine for the Protection of Official Secrets in the Press and Other Media and registered at the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine on September 23, 1994, under No. 226/436, individuals are allowed to take abroad the original and notarized copies of their marriage, educational, and other documents. The customs officer in question must have been unaware of or forgotten these instructions. Then he demanded, Ms. Patsai says, that the declared money be recounted. While recounting it, the officer drew out fifty dollars and repeated three times that the declaration should be obligatorily destroyed after crossing the border. Only later did the lady understand that it is possible to identify by the seal who checked the documents. It is for this reason that the declaration plus the letter, railroad ticket, and copy of the invitation for an interview were sent to our editorial office (today we are forwarding the originals to the competent organs).

The Daythinks this situation quite significant. But what seemed to us even more significant was the reaction of the Pole who shared the compartment with Ms. Patsai and was told to go out while the lady’s baggage was being examined. After the customs officer had gone, he said, “You put up with all this, and that’s why they treat you this way.” According to Ms. Patsai, the Pole cursed lividly Ukraine and its Customs Service. Was he not right? Indeed, a situation when the customs officer, abusing his office and taking advantage of people’s ignorance, allows himself to take a bribe is by no means exceptional, which is confirmed by the poll mentioned and experience shared by many of us. Even if the customs leadership is fully determined to combat corruption in all checkpoints, it cannot do this effectively on its own. This requires the assistance of the people themselves who must try to defend their legitimate rights, including by informing the top executives of the relevant services, law enforcement, and the media about extortion. You think this a waste of your time, strength, and nerves? Yes, of course, it is. But in reality, both European and American democracy (and bureaucracy) were not built overnight. This process also required the “small efforts” of individuals who refused to tolerate their rights being abused and fought back, taking the culprits to courts, including the supreme courts of their countries and international tribunals. Incidentally, one more fact is significant in this connection, when Ukrainian citizen Hennady Soldatov appealed to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to officially interpret a number of articles in the Constitution, Code of Criminal Procedure, and Code of Administrative Offenses. He claimed this interpretation was necessary because, when he was under criminal investigation, the investigator, the public prosecutor, and the court of common pleas turned down his request to allow the employee of a private law firm, with which Mr. Soldatov had signed a deal to represent his interests in the criminal case, to act as his defense attorney. Those officials and the court claimed the private lawyer did not have a certified permit to plead in court. The Constitutional Court ruled that the provision in Part 1, Article 59, of the Constitution that “everyone is free to choose the defender of his rights” should be interpreted, as applied to Mr. Soldatov’s case, as “the constitutional right of a suspect or a defendant in a criminal case or a person facing administrative charges to receive legal assistance and choose as the advocate of their rights a person who is a legal expert and is allowed by law to render legal assistance personally or by proxy of a legal entity.” The ruling says that “the provision in Part 2, Article 59, of the Constitution that ‘the purpose of advocacy in Ukraine... is to ensure the right to be defended in court’ should be interpreted as one of the principal constitutional guarantees which gives the suspect accused or defendant an opportunity to exercise his right to freely choose a lawyer eligible for advocacy as the defense attorney in a criminal trial. Commenting on this ruling, the trial judge, Volodymyr Vozniuk, noted that from now on a natural person has the right to choose a lawyer from among not only lawyers but also any other persons, “not for legal defense but for defense from civil and moral positions... Such an attorney will also be considered as one pleading in court.” Thus Hennady Soldatov, an ordinary citizen, managed not only to defend his own rights but also to force courts to change practices effecting us all.

If each of us makes at least a small effort to fight the common evil, we might even be able to make some progress.