Almost 1,300 appeals to the disciplinary commission: how many prosecutors were punished per year
Complaints about police actions are a daily occurrence in the public sphere, while disciplinary cases in the prosecutor’s office tend to remain less visible and less often become the subject of widespread discussion. Against this background, the data released by the Prosecutor General’s Office have drawn attention to internal statistics that allow us to see how many complaints about possible violations by prosecutors were received per year and how their consideration ended.
Report of the Prosecutor General’s Office for 2025 showed the scale of disciplinary complaints against prosecutors and the decisions they led to. During the year, the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors received 1,296 complaints in which the applicants reported possible disciplinary offenses. After the initial review, some of the appeals were allowed for further review, while the majority were rejected due to the lack of specific data that could indicate a violation.
According to the published information, based on the results of the review of these complaints, the commission opened 402 disciplinary proceedings. Another 894 appeals ended with a refusal to open proceedings, since they did not contain sufficient information about the signs of a disciplinary offense. This proportion shows that not every complaint submitted progresses to the stage of full-fledged disciplinary review, since this requires a properly stated content and specific facts.
A significant part of the appeals stopped at the initial stage, where the commission assessed whether they contained signs of a possible violation and whether they provided grounds for opening proceedings. Of the 1,296 complaints received, less than a third were allowed for further review, while the rest were screened out due to the lack of sufficient specifics.
In such procedures, the detailing of the circumstances referred to by the applicant is important, since the commission does not assess general claims, but the presence of signs of a specific disciplinary offense. Because of this, a significant number of appeals, despite the very presence of claims to the work of prosecutors, did not reach the stage of consideration on the merits.
Following the results of disciplinary proceedings, the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors adopted 172 decisions regarding 174 prosecutors. This number included materials that related not only to complaints filed in 2025, but also to appeals received in 2024 and considered later. Such practice is common for disciplinary procedures, since the consideration of cases often moves to the next calendar period.
Of the total number of prosecutors for whom decisions were adopted, the proceedings were closed for 91. This means that after reviewing the materials in these cases, no disciplinary action was taken. The commission also decided to punish 83 prosecutors, recognizing the existence of grounds for disciplinary liability.
Among the disciplinary sanctions imposed in 2025 were both milder measures of influence and the most severe personnel decision – dismissal from office. 25 prosecutors received reprimands, which is one of the basic types of disciplinary action in such cases. Another 18 prosecutors were punished with a one-year ban on transfer to higher-level prosecutorial bodies or appointment to higher positions, so the disciplinary consequences for them had both a reputational and career dimension.
The indicative figure in the report was the dismissal of 39 prosecutors. This indicator stands out against the background of other types of punishment, as it indicates a significant number of cases in which the commission recognized the violations as serious enough to terminate work in the prosecutor’s office. Against the background of 83 prosecutors who were subject to sanctions, dismissals constitute a significant share of all disciplinary decisions with negative consequences for officials.
The published data also contain separate information on liability for violations of professional ethics. Disciplinary sanctions were imposed on 49 prosecutors due to systematic or one-time gross violations of such rules. This block in the report has a special weight, since professional ethics for a prosecutor’s office employee concerns not only internal official behavior, but also standards on which trust in the institution as a whole depends.
However, the data provided does not specify how many of these 49 cases ended with one or another type of punishment, but the number itself shows that the ethical component in disciplinary practice occupies a prominent place. For the prosecutor’s office system, this means that performance evaluation concerns not only procedural actions or service discipline, but also compliance with professional rules of conduct.
