Independent Forensic Examinations for NABU: Analysis of Draft Laws No. 15569, No. 15569-1, and No. 15569-2

On August 27, 2026, MPs Yaroslav Zhelezniak, Anastasiia Radina, Maksym Khlapuk, and Nataliia Pipa registered Draft Law No. 15569 in the Verkhovna Rada. The draft law concerns the operation of the Research Center for Independent Forensic Examinations (RCIFE), which would give the NABU and the SAPO access to independent forensic examinations.

The draft law is needed because the current forensic examination system cannot provide the NABU and the SAPO with expert opinions that are complete, of adequate quality, and delivered within procedural time limits. Moreover, the possibility of undue influence on experts undermines the quality of investigations and the overall capacity of the NABU and the SAPO.

Two alternative draft laws were registered on September 7 and 15, 2026. MP Serhii Vlasenko submitted alternative Draft Law No. 15569-1 “on ensuring the exercise of the right to a genuinely independent forensic examination.” MP Volodymyr Kabachenko submitted Draft Law No. 15569-2 “on improving the legal framework for forensic expert activity.”

Key takeaways

• The main draft law deserves unequivocal support. It establishes in law an independent expert institution that will be able to provide timely, high-quality, and objective forensic examinations in NABU and SAPO cases.
• The expert institution’s independence is ensured through a special procedure for appointing its management and staff and for bringing them to disciplinary liability. It is also ensured by a Supervisory Board with special mechanisms for reporting interference in the work of experts and the institution’s management.
• The institution’s mandate must be clearly tied to criminal proceedings investigated by the NABU.
• Alternative draft laws No. 15569-1 and No. 15569-2 do not deserve support. They do not create conditions for timely, independent, and high-quality forensic examinations in NABU cases. They could also destabilize the forensic examination sector by abolishing full-fledged procedures for certifying experts and bringing them to disciplinary liability.

What we propose:

• In the main draft law, clearly extend the RCIFE’s mandate to criminal proceedings investigated by the NABU.
• In the main draft law, clarify certain technical points in the mechanism for responding to pressure on experts. These are a deadline for considering a report of pressure, an indicative list of response measures, and an obligation to inform the NABU and the SAPO of interference. The education requirement for Supervisory Board members should also be aligned with the List of Fields of Knowledge and Specialties.
• Reject alternative draft laws No. 15569-1 “on ensuring the exercise of the right to a genuinely independent forensic examination” and No. 15569-2 “on improving the legal framework for forensic expert activity.” Both propose deregulating forensic expert activity without safeguards against corruption risks and without a balanced approach.

What is the current situation?

Reform of forensic examinations is a long-standing and unresolved problem in Ukraine’s justice system. The reasons include the following:

• Ukraine has no independent expert institution specializing in examinations in criminal proceedings under NABU jurisdiction. Similar specialized institutions do exist under other agencies, namely the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the State Border Guard Service, and the Security Service of Ukraine.
• There are no dedicated legal mechanisms for responding to pressure on experts.
• As a general rule, any expert institution has 90 days to conduct an examination, and this period can be extended.
• Not all expert institutions can prioritize examinations or have criteria for doing so.
• Examinations are assigned to experts by the head of the institution rather than by an automated system.
• By law, an expert’s minimum base salary is 10 subsistence minimums. However, this provision has been suspended by budget laws for 8 years, so actual pay may be lower.
• The Register of Forensic Examination Methodologies publishes only a list of methodologies, without their content.
• Private expert institutions have no right to conduct any criminalistic examinations.

What does the main draft law propose?

The main draft law would establish an independent expert center that would prioritize NABU and SAPO cases. It would also provide better financial, material, and technical conditions for other experts. 

To this end, the authors propose to:

• reorganize the Research Center for Independent Forensic Examinations (RCIFE) in line with the law’s requirements, so that it conducts forensic examinations in a specific category of cases, in particular corruption and corruption-related cases, based on the criteria of NABU jurisdiction;
• guarantee the RCIFE’s independence by establishing a Supervisory Board of 5 members (3 of them from international partners), which would hold a competitive selection of the center’s director. The authors also plan to introduce independent certification of experts and an independent procedure for bringing them to disciplinary liability, an audit of the center every 2 years, separate funding, and other safeguards;
• establish a procedure for responding to pressure on experts;
• set a shorter period of 60 days for the RCIFE to conduct an examination, with the possibility of extension;
• allow the RCIFE director to give priority to examinations for NABU and SAPO;
• ensure automated assignment of examinations among RCIFE experts;
• raise minimum base salaries to 40 subsistence minimums for RCIFE experts and to 30 for experts at other institutions, and prohibit budget laws from reducing them;
• publish in the Register of Forensic Examination Methodologies not only the list of methodologies but also their content, except for restricted information;
• allow private expert institutions to conduct certain criminalistic examinations at the RCIFE, with the list to be determined by the Ministry of Justice.

What are the advantages of the main draft law?

The main draft law offers a comprehensive solution to one of the most acute problems in complex NABU and SAPO corruption and corruption-related cases: the Bureau’s lack of access to independent forensic examination. The European Commission, the IMF, and other international partners, on whom Ukraine’s EU accession and financial support depend, have repeatedly drawn attention to this problem.

The Rule of Law Roadmap also stresses that NABU must have effective access to impartial, timely, and high-quality forensic examinations. Independent examinations for NABU will support high-quality investigations, which may in turn make it possible to recover criminal assets, including taxpayers’ money that officials sought to profit from. According to the Head of SAPO, it is precisely the lack of such examinations that directly affects how quickly and effectively corrupt officials are brought to criminal liability.

In complex corruption cases, expert opinions are often what makes it possible to establish the amount of damage, the origin of assets, and the substance of financial transactions, and to examine documents and digital evidence. Accordingly, the quality and speed of examinations directly affect both the prospects of proving the charges and the state’s ability to recover proceeds of crime.

The latest example, from the Themis and Forrest Gump cases, confirms this from the mouth of one of the persons involved himself: giving the NABU access to independent examination would cause him and his alleged accomplice a great many problems.

The main advantage of the draft law is that it creates an institutionally independent examination system for NABU and SAPO cases. The RCIFE will have separate funding, a special governance procedure, and its own guarantees of independence. Its director will be selected through a competition and may be dismissed only on grounds set out in law. This is a fundamental departure from the current model, under which the heads of state expert institutions are appointed and dismissed by the Ministry of Justice or another agency. At the same time, a Supervisory Board involving international experts will serve as an additional safeguard against political or administrative interference in the Center’s work.

The institution’s independence is complemented by personal guarantees for RCIFE experts themselves. Their certification and disciplinary liability will be handled by a separate Expert Qualification Commission and Disciplinary Chamber. This should reduce the scope for pressuring experts with the threat of dismissal, loss of qualification, or disciplinary proceedings. In the event of undue influence, an expert will also be required to report it to the director or the Supervisory Board.

These guarantees are reinforced by adequate pay for the center’s staff. The draft law proposes setting the minimum base salary of RCIFE experts at 40 subsistence minimums (UAH 133,120 in 2026) and that of experts at other state institutions at 30 subsistence minimums (UAH 99,840 in 2026). This should help attract and retain qualified specialists and, at the same time, reduce corruption risks associated with low pay. This is especially relevant given that experts currently earn UAH 25,000–30,000, while the statutory minimum salary of even 10 subsistence minimums has not been applied in practice since 2018, as it is suspended every year by the State Budget laws.

Another important change is ending the manual assignment of examinations to experts. At present, the specific expert in a state expert institution is usually chosen by its head. The draft law instead introduces automated assignment of examinations among RCIFE experts. This significantly narrows administrative discretion and makes it harder to hand a sensitive examination to the “right” expert in advance.

Faster examinations are just as important. Long waits for expert opinions are one of the factors that drag out complex NABU investigations. One example is the multi-episode proceedings related, among other things, to possible influence on examinations in the “Medvedchuk pipeline” case, in which investigators needed several different types of examinations at once. 

The problem of time limits is compounded by the risk of leaks. Fearing premature disclosure of investigation materials, the NABU is in some cases forced to delay handing them over to experts. 

A separate institution with stronger guarantees of independence, combined with a shorter standard examination period (60 days instead of 90) and the ability to prioritize the most urgent examinations, should reduce both risks.

Finally, the draft law may make expert opinions more predictable and easier to verify. Publishing the content of forensic examination methodologies, except for restricted information, will allow the parties and the court to check how an opinion was reached and whether the examination followed the established methodology. This should also help standardize expert practice and reduce cases in which similar examinations produce substantially different results without proper scientific justification.

The draft law’s merit, therefore, is not simply that it creates yet another state expert institution. It proposes to change the very model of forensic examination in high-level corruption cases: to protect the institution from external administrative influence, the expert from personal pressure, each examination from manual assignment, and the investigation from excessive delays.

A further advantage of the document is that it sets out in detail the transition from the existing Research Center for Forensic Examinations of the Ministry of Justice to the independent RCIFE. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine will have three months from the law’s entry into force to ensure a decision on reorganizing (transforming) the existing Center in line with the new requirements and to form the Supervisory Board in the manner set out in the law. It is at this stage that the key safeguard of independence, a supervisory body with international participation, is meant to begin operating. Within the same three months, when preparing the draft State Budget Law for 2027, the government is expected to provide a separate budget expenditure program for the RCIFE’s operation, which is a practical guarantee of the institution’s separate funding. The government must also ensure the adoption of secondary legislation and bring ministries’ regulations into line with the new Law. 

The Ministry of Justice will have five months to approve the RCIFE Charter in line with the Law’s requirements. Within another six months, the Ministry must take inventory of forensic examination methodologies, both those already entered in the Register of Methodologies and those applied outside it. This will make it possible to identify all restricted methodologies and the grounds for restricting them. It will also ensure that methodologies are published in the Register, except for restricted information, as open data available for free viewing. The draft law thus does not merely declare the principle that methodologies should be transparent; it sets a specific timeline and institutional mechanism for putting it into practice.

Why should the alternative draft laws be rejected?

The alternative draft laws by MPs Serhii Vlasenko and Volodymyr Kabachenko do not propose a separate forensic expert institution for the NABU or any other legislative measures that would give the Bureau real access to timely, independent, and high-quality forensic examinations. The two draft laws are virtually identical, apart from a few provisions. 

In fact, neither document proposes changes that would ensure high-quality examinations in high-level corruption cases, since none of the risks of influence on experts are eliminated. Nor do they fulfill Ukraine’s international commitments to give the NABU access to high-quality examinations.

Instead, the alternative documents propose to formally enshrine in the Law of Ukraine on the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine rights that NABU detectives already have under criminal procedure legislation: to order an examination on their own and to determine the questions put to the expert. In other words, this provision changes absolutely nothing.

In addition, a large block of amendments is devoted to deregulating forensic expert activity, in particular by abolishing the certification procedure. Both authors of the alternative draft laws propose allowing forensic examinations to be conducted by “individuals who have the special knowledge necessary to provide an opinion on the questions under examination and at least five years of professional experience in the relevant field of knowledge.” This means that any individual, in some fields even without higher education, would be able to provide expert opinions.

Such practice is indeed common in foreign jurisdictions. Alongside experts with special status, other specialists may be engaged ad hoc, and their opinions may be recognized as proper expert evidence. However, admitting such experts does not, as a rule, remove the need to verify their competence. Competence must be confirmed either in advance through an appropriate professional or registration procedure or directly when the expert is engaged in specific proceedings. Likewise, the absence of special certification does not rule out other mechanisms for ensuring an expert’s proper conduct and accountability. 

Several foreign legal systems also lack the clear distinction between the procedural status of an expert and that of a specialist that is characteristic of Ukrainian criminal procedure. This allows a wider range of persons to be engaged as experts, with their competence confirmed by knowledge and skills rather than special status.

However, the model proposed by MPs Vlasenko and Kabachenko does not reflect international best practices: it allows any individuals with sufficient experience and practice to conduct examinations. Moreover, the draft laws do not even specify who would be responsible for their quasi-certification, that is, for verifying their experience, practical skills, and knowledge.

Another important argument is made in a study on the qualifications of forensic experts. It states that a forensic expert’s specialized knowledge should not be equated solely with knowledge in the fields of science and technology on which the classes, kinds, types, and subtypes of examinations are based. In the author’s view, without knowledge of the general scientific foundations of forensic examination and its procedural framework, it is impossible to conduct an examination properly and document its results so that the expert opinion is admissible and reliable evidence.

The model in the Vlasenko and Kabachenko draft laws is underdeveloped. It proposes “delicensing” forensic expert activity without an adequate alternative for verifying an expert’s subjective and objective competence. As a result, it could open the door to abuse, undermine trust in forensic expert opinions, and overload court proceedings with checks on the reliability of such opinions.

Worse still, Kabachenko’s draft law No. 15569-2 also seeks to insert into the Law of Ukraine on Forensic Examination, bypassing the Criminal Procedure Code, provisions declaring inadmissible all evidence that the prosecution refused to provide to the defense for examination.

The alternative amendments also propose to deregulate the procedure and grounds for bringing forensic experts to disciplinary liability. Only experts in employment or service relationships would be punished for disciplinary offenses, while others would not be subject to such liability. 

In addition, Vlasenko and Kabachenko propose deleting entirely from the Law of Ukraine on Forensic Examination the articles on expert qualification commissions, which are also responsible for imposing disciplinary penalties on experts.

Ukraine does need deregulation of the forensic examination sector, but the approach must take into account and minimize all the associated risks. Deregulation on this scale, without a well-grounded alternative model, will only increase corruption risks, lower the quality of forensic expert opinions, and make them harder to use in court.

What should be improved in the main draft law

The main draft law proposes genuinely high-quality changes that can make a real difference to the effectiveness and results of NABU and SAPO investigations. However, to bring it as close to ideal as current conditions allow, two aspects should be improved.

1. Clarify the list of proceedings in which the RCIFE may conduct examinations

The main draft law proposes adding to Article 7-2(1) of the Law of Ukraine on Forensic Examination a provision establishing the RCIFE as an independent expert institution that would conduct forensic examinations in the following categories of cases:

• criminal proceedings concerning corruption offenses and corruption-related criminal offenses under Article 45 of the Criminal Code, as well as Articles 206-2, 209, and 211 of the Criminal Code, if at least one of the conditions set out in paragraphs 1–3 of Article 216(5) of the Criminal Procedure Code is met;
• cases on declaring assets unjustified and recovering them to the state (civil forfeiture).

As a result, the proposed wording of Article 7-2(1) of the Law on Forensic Examination would not, in practice, allow the NABU to have independent examinations conducted at the RCIFE in all cases under the Bureau’s jurisdiction. 

The reason is that, under certain conditions, NABU jurisdiction also covers cases under Articles 384, 385, 386, 387, 388, and 396 of the Criminal Code (Article 216(7) of the Criminal Procedure Code); cases under Articles 354 and 364–370 of the Criminal Code if committed by a Bureau employee (the fourth subparagraph of paragraph 3 of Article 216(5) of the Criminal Procedure Code); and cases under other articles of the Criminal Code if the NABU Director so decides with the consent of the Head of SAPO (the third subparagraph of paragraph 3 of Article 216(5) of the Criminal Procedure Code).

Therefore, to cover examinations in all NABU cases as fully as possible, the wording should be expanded so that the RCIFE conducts forensic examinations specifically in criminal proceedings investigated by NABU, including those under NABU jurisdiction, as well as in cases on declaring assets unjustified and recovering them to the state.

1. Specify certain technical provisions of the draft law

On reporting pressure: the law only obliges an expert to notify the RCIFE Director within two working days (or the Supervisory Board, if the pressure comes from the Director), but sets out no further procedure. There is no deadline for the Director or Supervisory Board to respond to the report, no list of possible response measures (removal from the case, reassignment to another expert, referral to law enforcement), and no obligation to inform the NABU and SAPO, as a party to the proceedings, of the interference with the expert’s work.

On the higher education of Supervisory Board members (Article 17-1(3)): the wording “higher education in law, forensic examination, audit, or financial control” also raises questions, since “forensic examination” is not a separate field of knowledge or specialty in Ukraine’s List of Fields of Knowledge and Specialties for higher education. It is therefore unclear which diploma would satisfy this requirement, which could leave room for arbitrary interpretation when the list of candidates is drawn up.

The draft law should therefore set a deadline for considering reports of pressure on experts, an indicative list of response measures, and an obligation to inform NABU and SAPO of the interference. The education requirement for Supervisory Board members should also be aligned with the List of Fields of Knowledge and Specialties. 

Conclusions

Transparency International Ukraine supports adopting the main Draft Law No. 15569 at first reading, with its provisions to be refined before second reading. The document has significant potential to resolve the long-standing problem of NABU and SAPO access to timely, independent, and high-quality forensic examinations.

However, to fully implement the proposed innovations, our recommendations should be taken into account:

• clearly extend the RCIFE’s mandate to all criminal proceedings investigated by the NABU;
• clarify certain technical points in the mechanism for responding to pressure on experts: a deadline for considering a report of pressure, an indicative list of response measures, and an obligation to inform the NABU and SAPO of the interference. The education requirement for Supervisory Board members should also be aligned with the List of Fields of Knowledge and Specialties.

Addressing these comments will preserve the draft law’s strengths and create a more coherent and predictable model of forensic expert activity.

Alternative draft laws No. 15569-1 and No. 15569-2 do not deserve support because they are ineffective and risk destabilizing the forensic examination sector, so they should be rejected.