Draft Law No. 14292: Improving International Cooperation in Criminal Proceedings — an Analytical Overview

On December 11, 2025, the Cabinet of Ministers registered Draft Law No. 14292 in parliament, amending the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and other legislative acts with regard to international cooperation in criminal proceedings. The draft law is designated as European integration legislation, and its adoption is intended to help Ukraine fulfill certain commitments in the field of criminal justice and international cooperation.

For the anti-corruption field, this draft law matters above all because in high-level corruption cases the international element often becomes decisive. Suspects may be located abroad, evidence may be held by foreign authorities or companies, and assets may be registered in other jurisdictions. The quality of international cooperation procedures therefore directly affects the state’s ability to investigate such cases, enforce judgments, and recover criminally acquired assets.

Key takeaways:

• Draft Law No. 14292 is a revised version of Draft Law No. 11223, previously registered by the government and withdrawn in July 2025 following the government’s resignation;
• the document aims to modernize international cooperation procedures: the electronic exchange of requests, engagement with international organizations, and the regulation of certain matters relating to the search for wanted persons, extradition, the enforcement of judgments, and the confiscation of property — both in Ukraine at the request of foreign states and abroad;
• despite a generally positive assessment, the draft law contains shortcomings that could, in some respects, reduce the effectiveness of confiscating property abroad, of extradition, and of the search for and summoning of persons abroad, and that would leave unresolved the problem of the HACC’s lack of jurisdiction to rule on matters relating to the enforcement of its own judgments.

What we propose:

• introduce an obligation for the prosecution to prove the location of criminal property abroad, and allow enforcement officers, when enforcing judgments or rulings, to engage ARMA to locate corruption-related or laundered property subject to confiscation or special confiscation;
• take into account that special confiscation may be imposed not only on the basis of a conviction but also through rulings imposing special confiscation without a conviction, as provided for in Article 96-1(2) and (3) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine; 
• clearly establish that a person located abroad may also be summoned through electronic means of communication — official email addresses, messengers, and social media (provided that the person’s use of them is documented);
• given that amendments are being made to the relevant article of the CPC, provide that matters relating to the enforcement of HACC judgments must be considered by that court itself, rather than by local courts under the general rules of territorial jurisdiction;
• add clear deadlines for the court to respond to the Ministry of Justice on whether an extradition request remains valid, and provide that it is a negative response from the court — not the absence of a response — that constitutes grounds for withdrawing such a request;
• to align the provisions, the proposed clause 5-2 of Article 589(1) of the CPC — which allows extradition to be refused for a person who has been surrendered to the ICC or a tribunal — should be supplemented with a further ground for refusing extradition: the surrender of the extradited person to one of the requesting states.

How do things stand now?

Most articles in the CPC section devoted to international cooperation have not been amended since the Code was adopted in 2012. At that time, digitalization was not a global priority, and the practice of international cooperation had not become widespread enough to reveal the weaknesses in its legal regulation. 

As a result, the provisions currently in force lag in many respects behind technological progress and the new legal approaches to mutual legal assistance — particularly when it comes to confiscating assets located in foreign states and dealing with participants in criminal proceedings who are abroad.

The exchange of materials in international cooperation. Current legislation permits requests and case materials to be exchanged in paper form during international cooperation. This significantly slows down Ukraine’s interaction with partner states in the fight against crime, since it requires a considerable amount of time.

The protection of information in international cooperation. Information processed within such cooperation currently has no clear safeguards against disclosure — especially where the cooperation does not require opening criminal proceedings in Ukraine.

The international wanted list. The CPC does not expressly define the moment from which a person is considered to be on the international wanted list.

The enforcement of HACC judgments. Although the HACC hears high-level corruption cases as a specialized court, certain matters arising in the enforcement of its judgments — such as a convicted person’s parole or the replacement of the unserved part of a sentence with a more lenient one — still go before local courts under the rules of Article 539 of the CPC, rather than before the HACC.

The confiscation and special confiscation of property abroad. The CPC does not contain a sufficiently detailed mechanism for establishing the location abroad of property subject to confiscation or special confiscation. The engagement of ARMA to trace and seize property abroad when enforcing confiscation decisions is also currently unregulated.

Questioning from abroad. Witnesses or victims located abroad can be questioned only from the premises of a court at their place of residence, which means that a corresponding request must be sent each time to the competent authorities of the foreign state through mutual legal assistance. Only for the duration of martial law or a state of emergency has it become possible to question a witness or victim directly by videoconference from any location.

What does the draft law propose?

Draft Law No. 14292 proposes a fairly broad package of changes. Among the key positive updates:

• permission to make wider use of electronic communications for international cooperation requests;
• regulation of the protection of information and materials in international cooperation;
• a more detailed set of grounds for refusing or postponing mutual legal assistance requests, and of the procedure for executing them;
• improvement of the procedure for recognizing and enforcing judgments, as well as for confiscating property abroad;
• the introduction of the ability to question persons located abroad by videoconference or from the premises of a Ukrainian diplomatic mission, regardless of whether martial law or a state of emergency has been declared in the country.

Which provisions need refining?

Despite its generally positive thrust, the document contains a number of procedural gaps, legal ambiguities, and risks that could negate the intended effect in practice.

For the mechanisms it establishes to work smoothly, the document should be refined in the respects described below.

Confiscation of property abroad: the right direction, but a weak procedural design

The amendments to Articles 535 and 568 of the CPC are intended to ensure the enforcement of judgments insofar as they concern the confiscation or special confiscation of property located abroad. This is an important step, particularly in countering organized crime, and corruption in particular. There are two problematic points whose resolution could improve this process.

In the proposed wording of Article 535(7) of the CPC, the drafters would require the court to draw up a petition for the recognition and enforcement, in a foreign state, of a Ukrainian court’s conviction insofar as it concerns the confiscation or special confiscation of property. However, the drafters failed to take into account that special confiscation may be imposed not only by a court’s verdict but also, under Article 96-1(2) and (3) of the CC, by rulings on release from criminal liability, on the closure of criminal proceedings, on extended confiscation, on the imposition of coercive measures of a medical or educational nature, and on the imposition of criminal-law measures on a legal entity. The aforementioned provision of Article 535(7) of the CPC should therefore also include a reference to the rulings listed in Article 96-1(2) of the CC.

In addition, the draft law would require those enforcing the judgment (chiefly the State Enforcement Service) to notify the court of any property discovered abroad that is subject to confiscation or special confiscation.

This innovation is consistent with EU Directive 2024/1260, under which the tracing and identification of property subject to freezing and confiscation must be possible even after a final court decision. Yet, although the draft law offers such an option, the point at which criminal property — or property subject to confiscation — is discovered should not be deferred all the way until the court’s final decision. 

The reason is that state enforcement officers cannot match law enforcement agencies or ARMA in detecting and tracing property, especially abroad — they lack sufficient powers and resources for this. 

As noted earlier, it is law enforcement agencies during the pre-trial investigation, and ARMA, that have the most tools for tracing and identifying assets subject to confiscation. Even they, however, do so fairly rarely, and the reason is that Article 91 of the current CPC in no way requires the location of property subject to confiscation or special confiscation to be proved within criminal proceedings. Largely because of this, in most cases such property ultimately goes unnoticed by the enforcement service.

Therefore, to adapt the provisions of EU Directive 2024/1260 to Ukrainian realities, it would be sensible, first, to supplement Article 91 of the CPC with provisions requiring the prosecution to prove the location of assets subject to confiscation or special confiscation. Second, to establish that, when enforcing court decisions on confiscation for the laundering of criminal property or for corruption, ARMA may be engaged to identify property that may be confiscated. Article 535(7) of the CPC should also include a reference to the rulings listed in Article 96-1(2) of the CC.

2. The international wanted list, the digitalization of summonses, and the removal of procedural obstacles for persons abroad

One of the draft law’s provisions concerns placing a suspect on the international wanted list. In Article 291 of the CPC, the drafters propose to draw a clear distinction between a domestic search within Ukraine and an international one, and to establish that a suspect is deemed wanted precisely from the moment the investigator or prosecutor issues a decision to that effect.

This will help settle long-standing debates about the moment from which a person is considered placed on the international wanted list and will allow courts to follow a single line of application. 

At the same time, the amendments to this article will not resolve another, more acute problem. It concerns cases where suspects or the defendants are abroad and the defense, invoking Article 135(7) of the CPC, argues that they may be reached solely through the diplomatic-channel procedure. Currently, under this provision, a summons for a person residing abroad is served through international cooperation mechanisms.

HACC case law reasonably explains that a person’s mere presence abroad does not require summoning them through diplomatic channels, since such channels should be used only if the person has formally arranged permanent residence, registered with a consulate, deregistered their residence, and the like. If no such facts are established during the criminal proceedings, the person is summoned in the ordinary manner.

 Even so, the debate over this issue continues, owing to lawyers’ inconsistent reading of the said Article 135(7) of the CPC. This is precisely why the measure under the State Anti-Corruption Program to simplify the procedure for summoning, in criminal proceedings, persons who reside abroad and are citizens of Ukraine has not yet been implemented.

It would therefore be best to specify clearly in Article 135(7) of the CPC that a person located abroad may also be summoned through electronic means of communication — official email addresses, messengers, and social media (provided that the person’s use of them is documented).

3. Matters concerning the enforcement of HACC judgments should remain within that court’s jurisdiction 

The draft law also proposes amendments to Article 539 of the CPC. In this article, the drafters seek to clarify that the question of parole, or of replacing the unserved part of the sentence of a convicted person who has been transferred to serve their sentence abroad, is decided by the Ukrainian court that delivered the verdict. 

This provision carries no risks; however, while amending this article of the CPC, the legislator could also resolve the problem of matters relating to the enforcement of HACC judgments being decided by courts other than the HACC. Thus, by amending Article 539 of the CPC, the legislator could solve two problems at once.

The HACC has special subject-matter jurisdiction over corruption-related criminal proceedings. Yet most matters relating to the enforcement of its judgments are decided by local courts — in particular, at the person’s place of serving the sentence or place of residence. 

Local courts are entitled to grant parole to persons convicted by HACC judgments, to substitute their punishment, and to release them from it altogether. Such situations are not uncommon. For example, in 2024 the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv granted parole to a person convicted by the HACC — an accomplice in the bribery case involving the director of the Rzhyshchiv Military Forestry State Enterprise — so that he could serve in the military. And in 2025 the Voznesensk City-District Court released from punishment the head of a private company who had been convicted of misappropriating UAH 787 million of an NBU loan and of participating in the Yanukovych–Kurchenko criminal organization.

Matters relating to the enforcement of HACC judgments should be decided by that very court, since they can substantially affect the actual extent of the punishment imposed on those convicted of corruption-related criminal offenses — and therefore its deterrent, punitive, and rehabilitative effect.

Article 539 of the CPC should therefore be supplemented with a separate clause under which matters relating to the enforcement of a HACC judgment will be decided by the HACC alone. 

4. Eliminating the risks associated with the extradition procedure 

The draft law’s amendments also touch on extradition. The drafters spell out the procedure for submitting extradition requests, the handling of situations where several states request a person’s extradition, the application of preventive measures to such persons, and so on. Some of the proposed innovations require clarification.

The draft law adds to Article 575 of the CPC a mechanism for confirming that an extradition request remains valid. Under it, the court must respond to the Ministry of Justice on whether the request remains valid, and a failure to provide such a response becomes grounds for withdrawing it. Yet the drafters set no deadline at all for providing this response.

This creates a risk that, because the response deadline is undefined, the Ministry of Justice may mistakenly treat such an extradition request as withdrawn — even though the court has provided no response at all.

It is therefore important to add to the new Article 575(7) and (8) of the CPC clear deadlines for the court’s response, and to provide that it is a negative response from the court — not the absence of one — that constitutes grounds for withdrawing such a request.

In addition, to align the rules on simultaneous requests for a person’s surrender, the new clause 5-2 of Article 589(1) of the CPC should be supplemented with a further ground for refusing extradition: the surrender of the extradited person to one of the requesting states.

Thus it is necessary, first, to add to the proposed Article 575(7) and (8) of the CPC clear deadlines for courts to respond to the Ministry of Justice, and to provide that it is a negative response from the courts — not the absence of one — that constitutes grounds for withdrawing an extradition request. Second, the new clause 5-2 of Article 589(1) of the CPC should be supplemented with the following ground for refusing extradition: the surrender of the extradited person to one of the requesting states.

Conclusions

Transparency International Ukraine recommends adopting Draft Law No. 14292 in the first reading as a basis, with refinement ahead of the second reading, since adopting it in its current wording would leave gaps that would diminish the effect of the changes made.

In our view, the following recommendations should be taken into account during this refinement:

• Supplement Article 91 of the CPC with provisions requiring the prosecution to prove the location of assets subject to confiscation or special confiscation. 
• Establish that state enforcement officers may engage ARMA to identify property that may be confiscated when enforcing judgments or rulings for the laundering of criminal property (Article 209 of the CC) or for corruption (Note 1 to Article 45 of the CC). 
• Add to Article 535(7) of the CPC a reference to the rulings listed in Article 96-1(2) of the CC.
• Specify clearly in Article 135(7) of the CPC that a person located abroad may also be summoned through electronic means of communication — official email addresses, messengers, and social media (provided that the person’s use of them is documented).
• Add to Article 539 of the CPC a separate clause under which matters relating to the enforcement of a HACC judgment will be decided by the HACC alone. 
• Add to the proposed Article 575(7) and (8) of the CPC clear deadlines for courts to respond to the Ministry of Justice, and provide that it is a negative response from the courts — not the absence of one — that will constitute grounds for withdrawing an extradition request. 
• Supplement the new clause 5-2 of Article 589(1) of the CPC with the following ground for refusing extradition: the surrender of the extradited person to one of the requesting states.