Council Adopts Draft Law 12039 on Plea Bargains in First Reading

On October 9, the Verkhovna Rada voted for draft law No.12039 in the first reading, which regulates the issue of plea agreements in corruption cases. 268 votes in favor. 

268 votes in favor. 

Despite the fact that the draft law has the NABU’s and the SAPO’s approval, we at TI Ukraine are convinced that the document still has deficiencies. In our opinion, in addition to improvements, it will cause additional problems. Read more about this in our legal analysis: http://bit.ly/3zR1ojs

MPs propose to provide the following options to persons accused of corruption offenses when concluding an agreement:

• a sentence of imprisonment less severe than that specified in the sanction of the article if another person is exposed, as well as full or partial compensation for damages. This also applies to cases where offenses were committed by a a person acting alone;
• additional punishment in the form of a larger fine, regardless of the mention of it in the sanction of the article—from UAH 340,000 for a minor crime and up to UAH 204 million for a particularly grave crime;
• additional punishment in the form of confiscation of property in case of exemption from serving a sentence with probation if the parties have agreed upon an additional punishment.

However, certain issues remain unresolved.

1. It is not clear from the draft law whether an agreement can be concluded with persons whose actions did not cause damage.
2. The issue of confiscation of illegally acquired property is not settled properly.
3. The court is not given the authority to request the collected materials of the pre-trial investigation when verifying the agreement.

If the law is adopted in this form, there still will be issues with the efficiency of the plea agreement tool, as well as ambiguous provision interpretation.   

This is not the first such regulatory document considered by the parliament. In July, the parliament also adopted draft law No.11340 in the first reading. However, MPs did not consider it further, as it caused considerable indignation among the public.