Urgent Searches: An Analysis of Draft Law No. 15488 and Its Alternatives

On October 28, Parliament supported Draft Law No. 15488-3 at first reading with 265 votes in favor. The draft law proposes to set out in greater detail in the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine the grounds for urgent entry into a person’s home or other premises to save property. It was adopted as a basis, with its provisions to be refined before the second reading in accordance with Article 116(1) of the Law on the Rules of Procedure.

Earlier, on August 7, 2026, MPs Fedir Venislavskyi, Roman Kostenko, and others registered Draft Law No. 15488 in the Verkhovna Rada. MPs then registered three more alternative draft laws: No. 15488-1 by Serhii Vlasenko, No. 15488-2 by Antonina Slavytska and Oleksandr Tkachenko, the aforementioned No. 15488-3 by Serhii Ionushas, and No. 15488-4 by Hryhorii Mamka.

Regulating urgent searches remains a pressing issue, not only because the legislation is flawed but also because of problems with the quality of judicial oversight over the legalization of urgent searches.

According to the authors, the draft law should strengthen the constitutional guarantees of the inviolability of a person’s home or other premises, ensure legality when such premises are entered, rule out unlawful searches, and improve the quality of subsequent judicial oversight of searches conducted without a prior ruling of an investigating judge.

Transparency International Ukraine experts analyzed all of these draft laws.

Key takeaways:

• alternative Draft Law No. 15488-3, recommended by the committee, deserves support, as it eliminates the key shortcoming of the main draft law: it gives the owner or possessor the right to take part in the consideration of a motion for authorization of a search that has already been conducted;
• when Draft Law No. 15488-3 is finalized, its own shortcomings should be corrected, and the shortcomings of the main and alternative draft laws should not be allowed to carry over into it.

What we propose:

• remove the possibility of appealing rulings granting or refusing authorization for an urgent search or inspection;
• establish that filing a motion after the deadline must be grounds for denying the motion concerning the search, unless the prosecution proves that objective and insurmountable obstacles prevented it from applying in time;
• provide that a report of a criminal offense will be registered if it substantiates that an offense has occurred;
• avoid the risky provisions of draft laws No. 15488, No. 15488-1, No. 15488-2, and No. 15488-4 identified in this legal analysis.

What is the current situation?

At present, the Criminal Procedure Code, in particular Article 233(3), regulates the “legalization” of an urgent search as follows:

• the owner or possessor of the searched home or other premises does not take part in the consideration of the motion concerning the urgent search;
• rulings granting or refusing authorization for an urgent search cannot be appealed;
• the Code does not specify the deadline by which the investigator and prosecutor must file a motion for authorization of an urgent search that has already been conducted;
• there is no special deadline for returning property seized during an urgent search if its subsequent legalization is refused.

In addition, Article 214 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which governs the grounds for and commencement of pre-trial investigations, provides that criminal proceedings are opened on any report of a criminal offense, and refusing to accept such a report is not permitted.

What changes are proposed?

Alternative Draft Law No. 15488-3, supported by MPs at first reading, proposes the following changes regarding urgent searches:

• the owner or possessor of the searched home or other premises will be able to take part in the consideration of the motion concerning the urgent search;
• rulings granting or refusing authorization for an urgent search may be appealed;
• the investigator or prosecutor will have 72 hours to file a motion concerning an urgent search with the investigating judge, and the judge will have three days to consider it;
• property temporarily seized during an urgent search is to be returned if the prosecutor does not approve the motion concerning the search or if the investigating judge refuses to authorize it.

The author of the document, MP Serhii Ionushas, also proposes giving investigators and prosecutors the right to refuse to open criminal proceedings if a report contains insufficient information about the criminal offense committed.

What are the advantages of alternative Draft Law No. 15488-3?

Five draft laws, four of them alternatives, propose to regulate urgent searches, which confirms how pressing the problem is. They reflect two different approaches to change. Some try to strengthen the safeguards of subsequent judicial oversight but at the same time create new risks to the effectiveness of investigations (No. 15488) and to the admissibility of evidence (No. 15488-1 and No. 15488-2); others go far beyond the subject of the main draft law (No. 15488-4). 

The decision of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Law Enforcement to support alternative Draft Law No. 15488-3 by Serhii Ionushas at first reading, with revisions under Article 116 of the Law of Ukraine on the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, was the right one.

The draft contains precisely those procedural mechanisms, namely the person’s participation in subsequent judicial oversight and appellate review, whose absence was one of the central concerns about the main Draft Law No. 15488. 

Although some of its provisions also need adjustment, this version is the best basis for meaningful changes to judicial oversight of urgent searches as a legal institution. It responds directly to the key problem of the main draft and gives the possessor of the property the right to take part in the consideration of the motion for authorization of a search already conducted.

Moreover, compared with the main draft law, Draft Law No. 15488-3 takes a more systematic approach to returning property temporarily seized during an urgent search, since the Criminal Procedure Code currently provides no grounds whatsoever for returning such property. The draft law proposes that property seized during an urgent search be returned on the basis of a prosecutor’s decision or a court ruling refusing authorization of the search.

Which risky provisions should be removed from the alternative draft law?

Serhii Ionushas’s alternative Draft Law No. 15488-3 contains a number of positive innovations that improve oversight of urgent searches and inspections, as well as of the return of property temporarily seized during them. Above all, it deserves credit for allowing the possessor of such property to take part in the hearing on authorization of an urgent search or inspection. 

However, the draft law itself has certain shortcomings and gaps, which, in our view, should be corrected.

1. Appeals against rulings on urgent searches or inspections

One of the most critical concerns about alternative Draft Law No. 15488-3 is that it opens the possibility of appealing rulings granting or refusing authorization for an urgent search or inspection.

It is true that as early as 2006, in Panteleyenko v. Ukraine, the ECHR found that Ukraine had violated Article 13 of the Convention on Human Rights because the possessor of searched property had no domestic remedy against violations of the right to respect for one’s home guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention. The ECHR set out its most recent concerns on this issue in 2025 in Korniyets and Others v. Ukraine, noting that national (Ukrainian) law does not allow the owner or user of property to take part in the consideration of a motion for authorization of a search or inspection that has already been conducted (that is, an urgent one).

Scholars believe that reviewing the lawfulness and justification of such a restriction at later stages of court proceedings may not be an effective means of restoring the violated rights, so a prompt review mechanism is objectively needed.

Alternative Draft Law No. 15488-3 does fix this shortcoming by expressly granting the person whose home or other premises were searched and inspected the right to take part in the consideration of the investigator’s or prosecutor’s motion for authorization of the urgent search or inspection.

The author also proposes allowing appeals against rulings authorizing a search or inspection and against rulings refusing such authorization. 

Proposals to grant such a right of appeal have already appeared in some earlier draft laws, in particular No. 13599. However, this proposal seems premature and risks overloading the appellate courts. It also threatens to create unequal conditions for possessors of property searched in the ordinary manner, that is, on the basis of a court ruling.

Moreover, under this draft law, persons whose premises were subjected to an urgent search will already have the right to present their position before the investigating judge, which will introduce a domestic remedy against violations of the right to respect for privacy.

Therefore, the possibility of appealing rulings granting or refusing authorization for an urgent search or inspection should be removed from the alternative draft law.

2. Consequences of missing the deadline for obtaining authorization of an urgent search or inspection

One of the most appropriate proposals of alternative Draft Law No. 15488-3 is to introduce a clear deadline for the investigator or prosecutor to file a motion for authorization of an urgent search after it has been conducted. 

The draft proposes that such a motion be filed not “immediately,” but no later than 72 hours after the relevant investigative action.

An analysis of case law and scholarship shows that, after conducting such urgent investigative actions, the prosecution does not always apply to the investigating judge for authorization equally urgently. In one case, for example, the investigator applied to the investigating judge for authorization of an urgent search only five days after it was conducted. The text of the decision gives no explanation of why the investigator was unable to do so “immediately”; what is more, the case concerned the illegal handling of weapons.

In its ruling in case No. 466/525/22, the Supreme Court stated: “arbitrary compliance with the rule of immediate retrospective judicial review, that is, after the time objectively required for this has elapsed, does not meet the criterion of ‘immediacy’ unless the circumstances in the criminal proceedings file indicate objective and insurmountable obstacles to filing the relevant motion as soon as possible, and constitutes a violation of Article 233(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code.” 

According to scholars, such practices generally escape proper procedural assessment by investigating judges, which leads to the legalization of search results obtained in breach of the law.

However, the 72-hour deadline alone cannot discipline the prosecution, since missing it carries no negative consequences. Therefore, the new deadline rule will be merely declaratory.

Given the need to ensure the fastest possible retrospective judicial review of interference with the right to respect for private and family life, it is necessary to establish that filing a motion after the deadline must be grounds for returning the motion, unless the prosecution proves that objective and insurmountable obstacles prevented it from applying in time.

3. Commencement of a pre-trial investigation based on a report

The debate over the unconditional obligation of an investigator or prosecutor to accept a report of a criminal offense and open an investigation has been going on for years. On the one hand, abolishing this obligation would relieve pre-trial investigation bodies of the need to register, and later close, criminal proceedings opened on the basis of completely meaningless reports. On the other hand, unjustified refusals to open investigations into actual criminal offenses would become more frequent.

Statistics from the State Judicial Administration also show that in 2025, out of 42,270 complaints against refusals to register criminal proceedings, investigating judges found in 25,066 cases that law enforcement had unlawfully refused to register proceedings, and found the refusal justified in only 8,662 cases.

Indeed, on the one hand, the statistics show that unjustified refusals by investigators and prosecutors to accept reports outnumber justified ones; on the other hand, they confirm the quality of judicial oversight in this area.

The authors propose relieving law enforcement agencies by creating a preliminary filter under which investigators and prosecutors would check whether a report contains “circumstances that may indicate the commission of a criminal offense.” The draft law also proposes to clarify that a report must contain “a sufficient body of information enabling the investigator, inquiry officer, or prosecutor to reach a reasoned conclusion that a person’s actions or omissions constitute a socially dangerous act containing the elements of a criminal offense under the Criminal Code of Ukraine.”

Overall, this proposal deserves support, but the criteria for screening reports appear overly strict. Read literally, these provisions mean that only reports clearly setting out all the elements of a criminal offense will be registered, which is unrealistic for the average citizen.

A more appropriate approach would be to require that a report contain information enabling the investigator and prosecutor to reach a reasoned conclusion that a criminal offense has occurred, rather than that all the elements of the offense are present.

It should therefore be provided that a report of a criminal offense is registered if it substantiates that an offense has occurred, since proving the presence of the elements of the offense, including the person’s intent to commit it, would place an excessive burden on the victim or the person filing the report.

What should be avoided when finalizing Draft Law No. 15488-3?

Once alternative Draft Law No. 15488-3 has been adopted as a basis, it is important that problematic proposals from the main and other alternative draft laws do not find their way into it during finalization.

In particular, this concerns the requirement in the main Draft Law No. 15488 that the prosecutor must state the following in the decision to conduct an urgent search:

• information about “specific, individually identified property in respect of which sufficient evidence has been gathered in the criminal proceedings to provide reasonable grounds to believe that such property has or may have the characteristics of physical evidence”; 
• the reality of a “specific and immediate threat of destruction, damage, or loss” of such property;
• the impossibility of obtaining an investigating judge’s ruling authorizing entry into a person’s home or other premises because of the risk of losing such property.

Such changes could undermine the “urgency” of a search or inspection by making it harder to conduct, which would ultimately also increase the risk of property, including evidence, being destroyed.

Serhii Vlasenko’s alternative Draft Law No. 15488-1 also carries significant risks. It proposes to link almost any deviation from the requirements for conducting an urgent search, regardless of its nature and significance, to the inadmissibility of all evidence obtained directly or derivatively. The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that “not every formal failure to comply with the requirements of the criminal procedure law renders evidence inadmissible … to declare evidence inadmissible under Article 87(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, the court must specify the violation of which fundamental right or freedom resulted in obtaining this evidence.” The proposed changes could lead to criminal proceedings being closed or defendants being acquitted solely because of minor formal violations.

Draft law No. 15488-2 by Antonina Slavytska and Oleksandr Tkachenko largely reproduces the main draft as regards urgent entry and therefore retains its key problems, including the requirement concerning specific, individually identified property. However, it proposes much broader changes to the Criminal Procedure Code: applying the general principles of criminal proceedings to gaps in the law exclusively in the interests of the defense, which could undermine their coherence and the adversarial nature of proceedings. It also proposes declaring inadmissible any evidence obtained in breach of the procedure, regardless of the nature and significance of the breach. This distorts the current approach of assessing inadmissibility on the merits, which is upheld, among others, by the Supreme Court. 

Draft law No. 15488-4 by Hryhorii Mamka goes far beyond the issue of urgent searches. It simultaneously changes the powers of the prosecutor, depriving prosecutors of the right to conduct investigative actions, as well as the rules for conducting investigative and covert investigative actions, temporary access, the commencement of pre-trial investigations, and other institutions of the Criminal Procedure Code. 

Therefore, when finalizing the main draft law, the risky provisions of Draft Laws No. 15488, No. 15488-1, No. 15488-2, and No. 15488-4 should be avoided.

Conclusions

Urgent searches as a legal concept have needed reform for years, and Draft Law No. 15488-3 could become a good basis for closing the most critical gaps, which the ECHR, among others, has highlighted.

Transparency International Ukraine therefore supports the adoption of Draft Law No. 15488-3 at second reading, provided that it is revised. During its revision under Article 116 of the Law of Ukraine on the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, our recommendations must be taken into account:

• remove the possibility of appealing rulings granting or refusing authorization for an urgent search or inspection;
• establish that filing a motion after the deadline must be grounds for denying the motion concerning the search, unless the prosecution proves that objective and insurmountable obstacles prevented it from applying in time;
• provide that a report of a criminal offense is registered if it substantiates that an offense has occurred, rather than that all the elements of the offense are present;
• avoid the risky provisions of Draft Laws No. 15488, No. 15488-1, No. 15488-2, and No. 15488-4.