When between 2016-2017 I was serving as special advisor to the prosecutor general of Ukraine, I would tell everyone at the Prosecutor General’s Office who would listen, and even to those who didn’t want to listen, that a high level of rule of law was absolutely essential for proper development by any complex modern society, including, of course, Ukraine. As applied to prosecutors, rule of law meant the fair, principled and neutral administration of the law. This meant treating every case or possible case similarly, regardless of who the potential or actual defendants might be and, of course, maintaining a clear divide between politics and the administration of justice.
Because I had already served as a federal prosecutor for over 20 years, I used examples from my own experience and more broadly from U.S. Justice Department (“DOJ”) rules and practice to explain how the prosecutor general or any Ukrainian prosecutor should conduct him/herself to be in concert with rule of law principles. I am glad that I am not in Ukraine now because I would repeatedly be wiping egg off of my face.