During the parliamentary week, MPs have approved a number of anti-corruption draft laws as basic versions, which means that after some further development, these draft laws will probably be passed by the Parliament within a month. TI Ukraine’s experts have already analyzed these documents and identified their benefits and risks.
Draft law on the work of the Anti-Corruption Court. Earlier, the 38 judges were supposed to receive thousands of “old” corruption-related cases which had been accumulating in courts for years. When the draft law is passed, the HACC will be able to focus exclusively on new cases and truly demonstrate its effectiveness. Read the legal analysis here.
 |
 |
Protection of whistleblowers. The draft law stipulates that a whistleblower (other than an accomplice cooperating with the investigation) will have the right to a reward within 10% of the proceeds of the crime (over 5000 minimum living standards) or damages (but not more than 3000 minimum wages). After reporting corruption, the whistleblower will immediately have the right to free legal aid, compensation of legal expenses, etc. We recommended extending the definition of a whistleblower, since it is important to protect not only corruption whistleblowers, but those in other spheres, too. Besides, a personal account should be introduced enabling the whistleblower to track the progress on the case.
Reboot of the NACP. The NACP will not be a collegiate agency anymore, there will be the head of the agency with full authority. He or she will be appointed for a four-year term of office by the Cabinet of Ministers without the right to re-election. Automatic access to other registers will start working. We recommend establishing the maximum number of NACP staff and making changes to declarations verification procedure. Read more in the legal analysis.
 |
 |
Improvement of public procurement. Businesses will be able to fix errors in documentation within 24 hours, recover the fee for a complaint that has been granted or not reviewed and participate in a tender on behalf of an association of companies. Procuring entities will be able to purchase goods faster, decline proposals from participants with a bad track record, while heads of procuring entities will pay fines for violations of the law.
Draft law on the criminal procedural code: wiretapping, forensics and charges. The NABU and the State Investigation Bureau will obtain the right to independent wiretapping. The NABU will also have the right to have undeclared staff members.
 |
 |
Restoring criminal liability for illicit enrichment. The new version takes into account the shortcomings of the previous one identified by the Constitutional Court and makes it possible to bring officials to criminal liability for acquisition of assets in the amount over UAH 11.5 million. Civil forfeiture partially fixes the situation with the previous illicit enrichment provision being repealed through confiscation of illegally obtained assets during the last three years.
Lease of national and municipal property. Electronic auctions undoubtedly mitigate corruption risks when the lessee of national or municipal property is selected. Besides, this procedure also reduces economic risks of establishing the price.
In addition to that, the Parliament has approved in principle the draft law on reboot of judicial governance. There will be a Commission on Integrity and Ethics under the HCJ consisting of 6 people: three HCJ members and three international experts. The number of HQCJ members will reduce from 16 to 12. Former head of the HQCJ and his deputies, the head of the State Judicial Administration and his deputies will undergo lustration.
Follow the updates in the Legal Analysis section on our website.
For media inquiries: Olesia Koval, [email protected], 093-808-82-78.
