On July 27, the Parliament considered and adopted the draft law No.9534 in the first reading with 299 votes, which is to restore the mandatory electronic declaration of officials. Prior to this, the Anti-Corruption Committee recommended taking it as a basis.
Transparency International Ukraine supports the decision of the Verkhovna Rada to adopt draft law 9354 in the first reading as a basis. But this document needs to be finalized before the second reading to avoid shortcomings we have indicated.
What are the positive aspects of this document?
1. The obligation to submit declarations within the specified time limits will be restored — 90 days from the date of entry into force of the law, with the exception of individual servicemen and persons who are in the territories affected by Russian aggression.
2. All checks by the NACP will be resumed.
3. A register of declarations will open with certain exceptions, in particular, settlements will be concealed, which is quite justified, in contrast to the concealment of the names of all family members and third parties — most of them have already been mentioned in past declarations.
4. Special checks of officials will be resumed.
5. The NACP will provide declarants with access to information about them in state registers — this will be useful when filling out the declaration.
What are the shortcomings of the new draft law?
1. As a general rule, declarants are not required to enter information about the value of the property if they do not have legal documents indicating the value, etc. There will be a big gap in the issue of non-declaration of objects of ownership or use by the declarant or members of their family and evasion of declarants from criminal liability due to new provisions on the market value of such objects.
That is, in general, it will be difficult to prove the direct intent of the violators in court, when the declarant does not have an onerous duty to conduct any valuations. There is also a risk that dishonest declarants will be able to obtain expert opinions on the understated market value of facilities for bribes.
2. The NACP will lose the authority to issue clarifications on state funding of political parties, whistleblowers, and declarations. The Agency’s powers will only cover the clarifications relating to gifts and conflicts of interest, and other areas will need to be explained through “recommendations,” which may create different practices for declarants to submit information.
3. The document specifies too broad exceptions for family members of declarants serving in the army and persons who are in the territories affected by Russian aggression.
4. The declaration regime will be loosened by establishing a threshold of 183 calendar days for declaring objects of ownership or use. Previously, a specific number of days was not provided, a half of the reporting period was considered.
5. In the declarations, officials will be able not to indicate the IBAN of the bank account. This is generally a positive provision; however, the parliament will need to adopt a separate law on the creation of a Unified Register of Bank Accounts in contrast to this step.
This is a new draft law, which, according to Transparency International Ukraine experts, is undoubtedly better than document No.8071, which was previously under consideration by the Parliament. We hope that it will not lose its progressive provisions by the second reading.
Transparency International Ukraine supports the decision of the Verkhovna Rada to adopt draft law 9354 in the first reading as a basis. But this document needs to be finalized before the second reading to avoid shortcomings we have indicated.
