On May 12, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the President’s proposals to the Law “On Amendments to Some Laws of Ukraine to Improve the Effectiveness of Sanctions Related to the Assets of Certain Persons” (registration number 7194).
Earlier, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Economic Development considered and recommended that the Parliament adopt the President’s proposals and the law as a whole.
Regarding the analysis of the President’s proposals, they generally coincided with the recommendations of TI Ukraine:
- to establish exceptional grounds, conditions, and mechanisms for recovery of assets by court decision into national revenue through clear formulation of powers of entities that initiate, make decisions, and implement sanctions and determine the range of entities to which these sanctions may be applied;
- to strengthen asset blocking;
- to take into account the protection of the rights of third parties and the compliance of the new mechanism with the standards of the European Court of Human Rights;
- to introduce changes to the relevant procedural code (administrative or civil);
- to determine the standard of proof that should be used by the court when considering cases on the application of sanctions, and to increase the term of consideration in general.
It is still unclear which CEB instead of the NACP will ensure the implementation of the national policy in this area. However, the Prosecutor General’s Office, which TI Ukraine recommended being considered as such a body, will not fall under this definition.
Transparency International Ukraine believes that the proposed mechanism and its proportionality need to be improved (balance of goals and means in the application of the law). In particular, attention must be paid to the proper protection of the rights of third parties and compliance of the new mechanism with the standards of the European Court of Human Rights.
Let us remind you that the Verkhovna Rada passed draft law No. 7194 on April 21, and later, Volodymyr Zelenskyy vetoed the document, returning it to the Verkhovna Rada with his proposals.
