Ukraine to screen one million civil servants under new lustration law

About one million civil servants will be screened in Ukraine to root out corrupt practices from the past, PM Arseniy Yatseniuk has announced.

Ukraine’s parliament passed the lustration law on September 16, allowing the removal of government officials from their posts.

All those who worked under ousted President Viktor Yanukovych and also former senior Communist and KGB members will be affected.

Ukraine has had months of unrest since Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in February 2014.

Government troops had been fighting pro-Russia separatists in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions for months, until a truce was signed on September 5.

Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of sending its troops and heavy weaponry to help the rebels – a claim denied by the Kremlin.

“About one million civil servants of different kinds will come under this law, including the whole cabinet of ministers, the interior ministry, the intelligence services, the prosecutor’s office,” Arseniy Yatseniuk said in a televised cabinet meeting.

Correspondents say the issues of vetting and corruption are emotional subjects for many in Ukraine, who want to cleanse the government of Viktor Yanukovych’s influence.

The law on “lustration” – the cleansing of the ranks of power – was approved under huge pressure from activists, who took part in mass protests against Viktor Yanukovych.

The bill was finally passed after several failed attempts when speaker Okexandr Turchynov warned lawmakers he would not allow them to leave parliament without a successful result.

Outside the building, Vitaly Zhuravsky, who belongs to a party described as pro-Russian, was thrown by angry crowds into a rubbish bin.

The bill was approved on the same day as a new law granting self-rule to parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

It was part of the truce agreed between separatists and the Ukrainian government, although rebel leaders say they will continue to demand independence, and some Ukrainian lawmakers have described the move as “capitulation”.

At least 3,000 people have been killed in the conflict and more than 310,000 internally displaced in Ukraine, the UN says.

Also on September 16, the Ukrainian and European parliaments voted to ratify a major EU-Ukraine association agreement that aims to bring the ex-Soviet republic closer to the EU.