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.

How do things stand now?

At present, the formation of the HQCJ does not involve three international experts, because the term of office of the first composition of the Selection Commission was two years and expired in June 2025. 

In addition, the Selection Commission itself reviews candidates’ documents and compiles the list of persons admitted to the interview. A decision of the Selection Commission is adopted if four members vote for it, including at least two international members.

In the formation of the HCJ, international members participate in the first composition of the Ethics Council only for a six-year term, which ends in November 2027. The Ethics Council determines whether candidates meet the criteria of professional ethics and integrity, while the body that nominated the candidate checks compliance with the criterion of professional competence. The HCJ Secretariat has the power to accept documents from, and admit to the competition, candidates for the High Council of Justice who are elected by congresses or a conference. 

What does the main draft law propose?

The main draft law proposes two major sets of changes: one concerning the selection of HQCJ members and one concerning the selection of HCJ members.

For the selection of HQCJ members, it proposes the following changes.

• A competition may be held simultaneously for all vacant HQCJ positions if there is more than one vacancy. The HCJ must announce it no later than three months before the end of the term of office of the relevant HQCJ member, or within ten days after the early termination of that member’s powers or the member’s dismissal.
• The competition is conducted by the second composition of the Selection Commission, which includes three members nominated by international and foreign organizations. At least one of these three members must be a Ukrainian citizen. The Commission’s term of office is two years, after which it will be formed under the general rules of Article 95-1 of the Law of Ukraine on the Judiciary and the Status of Judges.
• The High Council of Justice, rather than the Selection Commission, will review the documents submitted by candidates for HQCJ membership and decide whether to admit them to the competition.
• The competition will consist of three separate stages, each handled by a different body. First, the HCJ will check whether the candidate and the candidate’s documents meet the statutory requirements. Next, the HCJ Secretariat will organize special vetting. Finally, the Selection Commission will determine whether the candidate meets the integrity criterion and, separately, the professional competence criterion.

• Only if there are reasonable doubts about a candidate’s integrity will the Selection Commission be able either to hold an interview or to request written explanations from the candidate for HQCJ membership. To assess compliance with the professional competence criterion, the Selection Commission will hold only an interview.
• The Selection Commission will make decisions by a simple majority, without a mandatory quota of two votes from international experts, and a tie vote will remain unresolved.
• The HCJ must receive at least two recommended candidates per vacancy. For positions to be filled by judges or retired judges, at least two candidates for the relevant vacancy must also belong to this category.

For the selection of HCJ members, it proposes the following changes. 

• The draft law sets a uniform starting point of the competitive procedure for the various bodies that elect HCJ members: no later than six months before the end of an HCJ member’s term of office, or within 14 days after the early termination of that member’s powers. It will also be possible to hold a single competition for several vacancies at once.
• The acceptance of documents and the initial screening of candidates will pass from the HCJ to the body that convenes the relevant congress or conference. That body will also interview the candidates who have passed special vetting and been recommended by the Ethics Council, in order to assess their professional competence.
• The Ethics Council will continue to assess professional ethics and integrity, and it will pass on to the electing body not only its opinions and the list of recommended persons, but also the documents and information concerning them.
• For the Verkhovna Rada, the draft law extends the deadline for submitting documents from 25 to 30 days and explicitly allows minor errors and inaccuracies to be corrected. 
• Instead of holding a “preliminary discussion,” the parliamentary committee will conduct full-fledged interviews with candidates to assess their professional competence, and the Verkhovna Rada will receive a broader package of materials on each candidate.

The government’s alternative Draft Law No. 16018-1, rejected by the Committee on Legal Policy, is virtually identical to the main one, except that the government proposed partially preserving the decisive vote of international members when assessing the integrity of HQCJ candidates: such a decision would have required four votes, at least two of them from international members. For professional competence, however, a simple majority would have sufficed.

In addition, the government’s draft did require the Selection Commission for HQCJ members to hold an integrity interview with every candidate, with no option to rely on written explanations instead and no precondition of reasonable doubts.

What should be improved?

Although the main draft law contains a number of useful procedural changes, it creates significant risks for the effectiveness of the competitions and for the role of the international component.

The draft law’s greatest flaw is that it waters down the role of international experts in the competitive selection of HQCJ and HCJ members. Taken individually, each change may not raise serious concerns. Taken together, however, they produce a vulnerable competitive procedure in which the international component loses its key advantage: independence and objectivity. Moreover, the draft law contains procedural changes that could significantly reduce the effectiveness of the selection. 

To eliminate all these risks, we offer the following recommendations for improving this legislative act. The Venice Commission has also endorsed some of these concerns about the changes to the HQCJ and HCJ selection procedures.

 

1. The full participation of international members in the Selection Commission for HQCJ members and in the Ethics Council for selecting HCJ members should last longer

Under the logic of the draft law, this competition for HQCJ members will be the last one conducted with international experts. Afterwards, once the two-year term of the second composition of the Selection Commission ends, it will consist of persons delegated by the judicial, prosecutorial, legal, and academic communities in accordance with Article 95-1 of the Law on the Judiciary.

Something similar, or even worse, will happen to the HCJ competition. The first composition of the Ethics Council for forming the HCJ, with the participation of foreign experts, was established on November 9, 2021, and its members serve a six-year term. As a result, a year from now, in 2027, the first composition of the Ethics Council will lose its powers, and its next composition will be formed from the judicial, prosecutorial, legal, and academic communities.

Regrettably, the draft law does not propose extending the participation of international experts in forming the HCJ and the HQCJ any further, even though such selection models have proven genuinely effective for top positions in Ukraine.

The proposal that at least one of the three international experts be Ukrainian is also concerning. Currently, nothing prevents or prohibits international partners from recommending Ukrainian citizens to commissions in such competitions. The inclusion of a Ukrainian citizen is therefore not problematic in itself, but it becomes a sensitive issue if the international component loses its decisive vote at every stage of the assessment.

Just as importantly, the draft law removes the Selection Commission’s specific power to engage assistants at the request of its members. Such assistance is needed to verify information about candidates and to organize the Commission’s work.

In its urgent opinion, the Venice Commission also supported a second composition of the Selection Commission with the participation of international experts. It reiterated that the involvement of international experts, as an exceptional temporary measure, should continue until the intended result is achieved. The opinion also criticized the mandatory quota for a Ukrainian citizen and the lack of an option to engage assistants.

Therefore, the participation of international experts should be extended for another six years, at least for the second composition of the Ethics Council. Likewise, the participation of members nominated by international and foreign organizations should be extended not only to the second but also to at least the third composition of the Selection Commission for HQCJ members, without introducing a quota for Ukrainian citizens and while preserving the Commission’s ability to engage assistants.

2. The votes of international experts in the selection of HQCJ members should remain decisive

The draft law proposes to neutralize the special role of international experts on the Selection Commission for HQCJ members. 

Currently, to decide that a candidate meets the criteria of integrity and professional competence, the Selection Commission must vote with four votes, at least two of which come from international experts.

The main draft law proposes to abolish this advantage of international experts’ votes entirely, so that the Selection Commission for HQCJ members would decide by a simple majority.

The Cabinet of Ministers’ proposals in the alternative draft law also weakened the role of international members’ votes by setting separate voting rules for the integrity criterion and the professional competence criterion:

• to find that a candidate meets the integrity criterion, four votes would be required, at least two of them from international members;
• to find that a candidate meets the professional competence criterion, four votes would be required, at least one of them from international members.

Moreover, both draft laws remove the special mechanism for breaking a tie. As a result, a 3–3 vote could block a decision, whereas under the current model for the first composition of the Selection Commission, the decision supported by at least two international members prevails in such a case.

Like us, the Venice Commission recommends not changing the weight of the votes and retaining the decisive vote of international experts in assessing both criteria: integrity and professional competence.

Weakening the decisive vote of international members will only increase the risk of interference with the selection results. Therefore, the current voting procedure of the Selection Commission for HQCJ members, with the decisive vote of international experts, should remain unchanged.

3. Integrity interviews for HQCJ candidates should be mandatory

Main Draft Law No. 16018, supported by the parliamentary committee, proposes a dangerous provision that would allow candidates for HQCJ membership who lack integrity to pass the integrity filter without proper verification and assessment.

The draft law provides that an integrity interview will be held only if there are reasonable doubts about the candidate’s integrity, and that even where such reasonable doubts exist, the Commission may limit itself to sending requests asking the candidate to explain the suspicious circumstances.

This approach to vetting candidates’ integrity is extremely risky, as it will become much harder to screen all candidates properly. Consequently, the risk that members lacking integrity will join the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine will grow.

In a similar selection of judges for the High Anti-Corruption Court, the Public Council of International Experts, despite having the same option to hold interviews selectively, decided to invite all candidates to interviews. As a result, 68% of the participants failed to convince the experts of their integrity.

Moreover, the alternative government draft law contains this very proposal to hold integrity interviews with all HQCJ candidates under any circumstances. We hope that, when revising the main draft law for the second reading, the committee will incorporate this positive proposal from the alternative draft.

Therefore, the Selection Commission for HQCJ members should be required to hold integrity interviews with every candidate, without exception.

4. A standardized assessment of professional knowledge should precede the integrity check

The proposal to assess candidates in an order where integrity is checked first and professionalism only afterwards remains unexplained.

The Selection Commission spends far more time, effort, and resources on checking a candidate’s integrity, since this requires reviewing a vast amount of public and non-public data, analyzing it, and assessing every suspicious fact.

To save resources, the first stage should consist of standardized testing of professional knowledge and analytical skills and/or a practical assignment. This would make it possible to determine the pool of candidates who will undergo the resource-intensive integrity check. Other components of professional competence that the standardized assignment does not cover should be assessed during a structured interview.

The Venice Commission takes the same approach: if the interview is retained as the sole tool for assessing professional competence, it must be conducted consistently, on the basis of criteria and a structure published in advance, while a written or practical component would increase objectivity.

Therefore, the first stage should provide for a standardized assessment of professional knowledge and analytical skills through testing and/or a practical assignment, and the other components of professional competence should be assessed during a structured interview. The integrity check should be conducted for candidates who have passed the first stage.

5. Assessing the professional competence of HCJ candidates requires consistent rules

Today, in the competitive selection of HCJ members, compliance with the criteria of ethics and integrity is determined by the Ethics Council, which includes international experts. Professional competence, in turn, is formally checked by the body that nominated the candidate.

The draft law proposes to explicitly grant the body that convenes the relevant congress or conference the power to hold a full-fledged interview with candidates to assess their professional competence. The relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada receives a similar function with respect to candidates from Parliament.

However, the text of the draft law does not set out common criteria, indicators, or a methodology for this assessment. As a result, each of the bodies that form the HCJ may apply the same statutory requirement of professional competence differently. Furthermore, unlike the HQCJ competition, where the decision on professional competence is expressly required to be reasoned, the draft law does not explicitly establish a similar requirement for the bodies that assess HCJ candidates.

The Venice Commission expressly recommends that Parliament not transfer the assessment of professional competence to these bodies. However, if the interviews are nonetheless retained, the law should clearly state that they are not eliminatory.

Therefore, consistent rules for assessing candidates’ professional competence should be established for congresses, conferences, and parliamentary committees: common criteria, indicators, and a requirement to give reasons for decisions.

6. The procedure for admitting HCJ candidates needs to be unified

The draft law proposes to change the body that admits candidates to the competition for HCJ membership. Currently, the High Council of Justice itself is responsible for accepting the documents of such candidates and admitting them, whereas the draft law proposes to transfer these powers to the bodies that convene congresses or conferences and to the parliamentary committee.

This means that different bodies will decide on admission to the same competition, which creates a risk of inconsistent practice and of different approaches to assessing whether candidates’ documents meet statutory requirements.

The draft law also sets different methods of submitting documents depending on the body to which the candidate intends to submit them. For example, a person wishing to take part in the selection who submits documents to the body that convenes the relevant congress or conference may do so in person, by mail, or by electronic means of communication. If, however, the documents are submitted to the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada, the candidate may do so only in person or by mail.

The draft law itself does not explain why candidates for the same position should have different options for submitting documents, and different chances of being admitted, depending on the electing body. Unless there are objective technical or security obstacles, electronic submission should also be available in the parliamentary procedure, and the admission criteria should be uniform for all bodies.

While generally supporting the digitalization of document submission, the Venice Commission adds requirements that refusals of admission be reasoned, communicated to the candidate, and subject to appeal.

Therefore, HCJ candidates should be able to submit documents to the parliamentary committee electronically, and the admission criteria should be uniform for all bodies. 

Conclusion and recommendations

In its current form, Draft Law No. 16018 could do more harm than good. 

Therefore, Transparency International Ukraine supports its adoption at first reading as a basis, with mandatory revision before the second reading in accordance with Article 116 of the Law of Ukraine on the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, only on the condition that the revision is based on our recommendations:

• extend the participation of members nominated by international and foreign organizations not only to the second but also to at least the third composition of the Selection Commission for HQCJ members, refrain from introducing a quota for Ukrainian citizens in it, and preserve its ability to engage assistants;
• leave unchanged the current voting procedure of the Selection Commission for HQCJ members, with the decisive vote of international experts;
• provide for a first stage consisting of a standardized assessment of professional knowledge and analytical skills through testing and/or a practical assignment; assess the other components of professional competence during a structured interview, and conduct the integrity check only for candidates who have passed the first stage;
• require the Selection Commission for HQCJ members to hold integrity interviews with every candidate;
• extend the participation of international experts to at least the second composition of the Ethics Council;
• establish uniform rules for assessing the professional competence of HCJ candidates for congresses, conferences, and parliamentary committees: common criteria, indicators, and a requirement to give reasons for decisions;
• allow HCJ candidates to submit documents to the parliamentary committee electronically, and make the admission criteria uniform for all bodies. 

Identified problems and recommendations for improving the draft law

Despite its generally positive direction, an analysis of the text of draft law No. 15165 reveals certain risks:

1. Inconsistency of the procedure for establishing self-organization bodies with the Constitution of Ukraine. Establishing these bodies falls within the competence of the local council, and the law cannot restrict the council or deprive it of the ability to decide, at its own will, whether or not to permit the establishment of a self-organization body. Under the draft, however, the council would effectively be required to accept the residents’ initiative.
2. Inconsistency with the Basic Law of the amended legal formulation “powers granted to a self-organization body in accordance with the Constitution and laws of Ukraine, as well as transferred to it by the village, settlement, or city council within its competence to address issues of local importance in the relevant territory.” The Constitution does not provide for granting or transferring the powers of local councils to self-organization bodies; it only provides for councils to endow them with powers by the councils’ own decisions.
3. Diminished role of the local council in determining the scope of a self-organization body’s powers. This is not fully consistent with the constitutional nature of these bodies as entities endowed with part of the competence of local self-government bodies and requires further justification. 
4. Delimitation of self-organization bodies’ powers and the local council’s discretion. Combining the own and delegated powers of self-organization bodies under the single term “powers of a self-organization body” runs counter to the principle that it is the council that must determine the scope of these bodies’ powers — the very powers for which they are essentially established (and which depend on the relevant council’s willingness to endow the body with part of its own competence, finances, and property).
5. Delineation of powers. There is a risk that the functions of self-organization bodies will duplicate the powers of village heads, which may lead to conflicts of competence within a single territorial community. The draft should therefore clearly delineate where the responsibility of a self-organization body ends and that of the village head begins, so as not to create “dual power” on the same street.
6. Risk of formalism. Stronger accountability and publicity requirements call for additional digital tools; otherwise, self-organization bodies in villages or settlements will be technically unable to comply with these rules.
7. Vague financial guarantees and integrity requirements. The draft obliges councils to assist self-organization bodies but sets no clear minimum standards for financial support. Transparency requirements for spending the funds these bodies will receive from local budgets should be strengthened by introducing mandatory public reporting.

What the bill proposes

The special rules will apply to village, settlement, and city councils in communities with fewer than 10,000 voters whose members were elected in the 2020 local elections under the plurality system in multi-member constituencies, and whose membership has fallen below the level required for a council to function normally.

The key change is that a council will retain its authority if, after the early termination of some members’ powers, between one-third and one-half of its members, inclusive, remain in office. If one-third of the total membership is not a whole number, the required number of members will be rounded up to the next whole number.

The draft law also sets out specific rules for convening sessions and making decisions in such councils. The special regime will remain in effect for the duration of martial law and, after martial law is terminated or lifted, until the first session of the council elected at the next local elections.

Another set of changes concerns council members serving in the military. The revised text provides that requirements for participating in council work, and the consequences of missing meetings, will not apply to members of village, settlement, and city councils who are performing military service during mobilization, under contract, or following the call-up of reservists. Military service in itself will not terminate a member’s powers.

The draft law also allows the procedures for council members’ reporting to be adapted to security conditions. In particular, a council will be able to determine how members report and how their reports are published if complying with the standard requirements poses risks to physical safety.

What changed in response to comments on the draft law

One of the most contentious parts of the bill concerned how many members must remain on a council for it to continue working.

The Main Research and Expert Department of the Verkhovna Rada Secretariat pointed out that the original approach needed to be reconciled with the principle of collegiality in local self-government. Following revisions, the Committee proposed defining the limits of the exceptional mechanism more precisely: it will apply when no more than half, but no fewer than one-third, of the council’s members remain.

At the same time, it was proposed to remove the provision under which a council’s membership falling below half would automatically serve as grounds for establishing a military administration in the locality.

Losing some council members as a result of the war should not in itself mean that a community automatically loses a functioning local self-government body, as long as the council retains the minimum necessary representation and the ability to make decisions collegially.

For communities, it is critical that the war and the unavoidable decline in council membership do not lead to a situation where a council exists on paper but in practice cannot make budget, social, land, recovery, and other decisions on which the community’s life depends.

However, the exceptional rules needed under martial law must remain strictly limited in scope and duration. Lowering the threshold at which a council retains its authority must not become a general rule beyond the circumstances for which this mechanism is being created.

Likewise, adapting the requirements for council members’ reporting to security risks must not mean abandoning accountability itself. If a public event, advance notice of its venue, or another traditional format poses risks, the community should use safe alternatives that still allow voters to learn about their representatives’ work.

Our recommendations

Transparent Cities considers it advisable to support Draft Law No. 14405 as revised. However, when it is finally adopted and put into practice, it is important to preserve several fundamental safeguards:

• the special procedure should apply only to local councils that meet the criteria set out in the law and cannot fill vacant seats because elections cannot be held under martial law;
• the lower threshold of one-third of the council’s total membership should remain in place as a safeguard ensuring that the council stays capable of making decisions;
• council members performing military service should be protected from the negative consequences of failing to perform duties they are physically unable to fulfill because of their service;
• security-related exceptions for reporting should change its form, not abolish the principle of council members’ accountability to voters.

Because of the war, the early termination of council members’ powers, and the impossibility of holding elections, some small communities risk being left with councils that cannot function properly. The proposed mechanism should allow these communities to maintain functioning local self-government, ensure continuity in decision-making, protect the rights of council members serving in the Defense Forces, and adapt certain council procedures to wartime conditions. 

Proposed amendments

Draft law No. 16043 provides that cases on declaring assets unjustified and recovering them to the state revenue will be heard by a single HACC judge. A panel hearing (by three judges) will be possible only upon a motion by a defendant who holds one of the positions on an exhaustive list: a President of Ukraine whose powers have been terminated, member of parliament, Prime Minister, member of the Cabinet of Ministers, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Prosecutor General, Deputy Prosecutor General – Head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, Head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Director of the State Bureau of Investigation, Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, Head of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, Head of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, Head of the Accounting Chamber, Head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine, Head of the Central Election Commission, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Chair and judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, Chair of the Supreme Court, heads of the high specialized courts, and Head of the High Council of Justice.

The draft law also sets out a mechanism for exercising this right. In its ruling on opening proceedings, the court will be required to explain to a defendant on the list their right to file a motion for a panel hearing. Such a motion may be filed only before the case is scheduled for trial on the merits; if it is submitted later, it will be left without consideration. The court will decide on a panel hearing at the preparatory hearing.

As for sanctions cases, the words “by a panel of three judges of the High Anti-Corruption Court” will simply be deleted from the Code of Administrative Procedure. Such cases will be heard by a single judge, with no exceptions and no list of parties entitled to request a panel hearing.

As in the previous version, the Final and Transitional Provisions retain the rule that the previous procedure (panel hearings) applies to both categories of cases in which proceedings were opened before the law enters into force.

What needs improvement

Our main criticism of Draft Law No. 14033 was that it did not specify at what stage, at whose initiative, and in what form the question of a panel hearing in a civil forfeiture case would be decided, relying instead on a vague “complexity” criterion. This concern closely mirrors a problem that the seventh HACC monitoring report has already identified with a similar mechanism in criminal proceedings (in effect since May 16, 2024): the lack of a consistent approach to when a defendant may exercise the right to a panel hearing. The defense has at times exploited this to delay proceedings, notably in the Rotterdam+ case.

The new draft law removes this uncertainty for civil cases, and it does so in precisely the way we suggested as a benchmark. This approach is consistent with the Venice Commission’s position that the allocation of cases, and any exceptions to it, should be based on objective, transparent criteria established in advance by law. It also reduces the risk of decisions being challenged on the grounds that the case was not heard by a “tribunal established by law.”

At the same time, two issues from our previous analysis remain unresolved. The deadlines for appeals in sanctions cases have still not been extended and remain at 5 days.

 

Conclusions

Transparency International Ukraine recommends adopting Draft Law No. 16043 at first reading and as a whole. 

The extension of the procedural deadlines for filing a statement of defense and an appeal in sanctions cases to 15 days should be addressed through a separate draft law.

 

This material is funded by Norway. Its content is the sole responsibility of Transparency International Ukraine and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Norwegian Government. 

Key takeaways

The comparison shows that the revised version is stronger than the government’s and takes on board some of the comments we had raised regarding all three earlier versions. Among the most important points:

• the range of potential powers granted to the Head of SAPO has been expanded — to initiate criminal proceedings against MPs and to approve motions for investigative actions against them (1.10.3.1); a separate problem has been added on the mismanagement of seized assets (1.10.4), along with a comprehensive block on the selection of SBI leadership (2.2.9); and the risks of informal or political influence over the appointment and dismissal of the Prosecutor General are now acknowledged;
• a separate block has appeared on the effectiveness of financial control measures and the internal procedures of NACP (1.6.8) — this partially closes the gap regarding the ineffectiveness of the e-declaration verification mechanism, which we had flagged in our analysis of earlier versions, and is a significant improvement;
• another positive change is the expansion of the list of declarants in line with EU recommendations; once the Strategy is adopted, the range of officials required to file declarations despite the low corruption risks in their work will be reviewed;
• a detailed provision has been included on statutorily defining the level and structure of salaries for all categories of NACP staff (1.10.1.1), which had been cut back in the government’s version;
• however, the provision on the participation of independent experts delegated by international partners in selecting members of the HQCJ and the HCJ does not make their involvement mandatory, which is a negative change;
• the draft law has also removed the provision allowing NACP to issue binding orders to the heads of bodies and organizations for gross and systematic failure to implement the measures of the State Anti-Corruption Program, which significantly weakens the Strategy;
• the gap concerning the minimum required level of implementation of SAP measures remains unaddressed — contrary to OECD recommendations.

How do things stand now?

Currently, the application of the CPC of Ukraine in investigating and trying top corruption cases has revealed opportunities for abuse and delay, creating unjustified obstacles to holding people criminally liable.

On the time limits for pre-trial investigation after a notification of suspicion:

1. at present, under Article 284(1)(10) of the CPC of Ukraine, criminal proceedings may be closed simply because the case was sent to court after the pre-trial investigation period had lapsed — even by just one to three days;
2. the CPC of Ukraine provides no separate mechanism allowing a victim or the defense to ask an investigating judge to order the prosecutor to complete the pre-trial investigation once the relevant deadline has passed; it does, however, require the prosecutor under Article 308 to respond to any failure to observe reasonable investigation timeframes;
3. the maximum period of pre-trial investigation after a notification of suspicion is 12 months;
4. the head of a prosecutor’s office may extend the pre-trial investigation period up to 3 months, while extensions to 6 and 12 months may be granted only by an investigating judge.

On preventing abuse of procedural rights:

1. the systematic failure of defense counsel to appear when summoned — including for court hearings — is not clearly established as a standalone ground for bringing in defense counsel from the free legal aid (FLA) system. Nor does the law expressly prohibit filing and considering certain motions, applications, and complaints that have been submitted repeatedly or contain offensive or indecent language;
2. courts are often forced to adjourn hearings because some participants in the proceedings fail to appear, even without valid reasons. Formally, the law does not establish that the presence of at least one of the defendant’s defense lawyers is sufficient to realize the right to a defense. And bringing in a new defense counsel or prosecutor — even when the previous ones are still taking part in the proceedings — is often used as grounds for adjournment;
3. suspending court proceedings due to the mobilization of the defendant is possible only in cases involving grave and especially grave corruption offenses, and only if it is proven that the defendant cannot take part directly because of their involvement in Ukraine’s defense efforts;
4. where a trial is being dragged out, the law does not expressly empower the presiding judge to limit the parties’ speaking time during closing arguments and the final statement.

On extending the duration of obligations as part of preventive measures: current law allows a court to impose on the suspect or the defendant any of the procedural obligations listed in Article 194(5) of the CPC of Ukraine in connection with a preventive measure for a maximum of two months, with the possibility of extension.

On NABU’s investigative jurisdiction and its powers in international cooperation:

1. NABU’s jurisdiction based on the category of official does not expressly extend to corruption and corruption-related offenses committed by the leadership of the State Bureau of Investigation, the Office of the President of Ukraine, and the state, military, and military-civil administrations of the regions and of the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol; by senior command staff of the Economic Security Bureau and the State Bureau of Investigation; or by deputy heads, supervisory board members, and members of the executive bodies (management boards, directorates) of state-owned and municipal large enterprises. And the mechanism for transferring cases to NABU under the rules of jurisdiction is not regulated in any way;
2. the Head of SAPO cannot, without the Prosecutor General, independently set up joint investigation teams as part of international cooperation, nor send extradition requests on their own.

What the draft laws propose

Draft Law No. 15333 proposes three blocks of changes.

1. On the time limits for pre-trial investigation after a notification of suspicion:

• remove the expiry of the pre-trial investigation period after a notification of suspicion from the list of grounds for closing criminal proceedings (Article 284(1)(10) of the CPC of Ukraine);
• introduce a mechanism whereby, if the pre-trial investigation deadline expires, the victim or the defense would have the right to ask an investigating judge to order the prosecutor to complete the pre-trial investigation;
• increase the maximum pre-trial investigation period after a notification of suspicion to 18 months;
• provide that the pre-trial investigation period after a notification of suspicion is extended to 6 and 12 months by the head of the prosecutor’s office, and to 18 months by an investigating judge.

1. On preventing abuse of procedural rights:

• allow defense counsel from the FLA system to be brought in where the suspect’s or the defendant’s own lawyers systematically (twice or more) fail to appear when summoned by the investigator, prosecutor, or court;
• allow the court to decline to consider motions to apply measures to secure the proceedings, motions during the trial, and appeals, cassation appeals, and applications to review decisions on the basis of newly discovered or exceptional circumstances, where such applications, complaints, and motions have been filed repeatedly or contain offensive or indecent language;
• allow the trial to continue in the absence of certain participants who were duly notified but failed to appear when summoned, while giving them the opportunity to set out their position in writing and present it at the next hearing;
• formally establish that, to ensure the right to a defense, the participation of all of the defendant’s lawyers in a hearing is not mandatory — the presence of at least one is enough;
• provide that a hearing will not be adjourned to allow new prosecutors or defense counsel to familiarize themselves with the case file, so long as the previous prosecutors or defense counsel continue to take part in the hearing;
• enshrine in Article 335 of the CPC the court’s right to suspend proceedings on a charge of any criminal offense where the defendant is performing military service and is unable to take part in the trial;
• give the court the ability, where it finds that a participant is abusing their procedural rights, to limit the length of any of that participant’s addresses.

1. To streamline the process of extending the duration of obligations, it is proposed to give the court the ability, for up to 6 months, to prohibit a suspect (or the defendant) subject to a preventive measure from leaving the country, from leaving certain localities (districts, regions), and from visiting certain areas; to prohibit them from communicating with specific individuals; and to require them to appear when summoned and to report any change of residence or workplace.

Draft Law No. 15334 proposes to expand NABU’s investigative jurisdiction and to resolve the questions around the powers of the Head of SAPO as follows:

• extend NABU’s jurisdiction to corruption and corruption-related offenses committed by the leadership of the SBI, the Office of the President of Ukraine, and the state, military, and military-civil administrations of the regions and of the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol; by senior command staff of the ESBU and the SBI; and by deputy heads, supervisory board members, and members of the executive bodies (management boards, directorates) of state-owned and municipal large enterprises;
• regulate the transfer of cases to NABU under the rules of jurisdiction by setting a deadline for handing over the materials and for the prosecutor’s decision determining such jurisdiction;
• empower the Head of SAPO to set up joint investigation teams as part of international cooperation and to send extradition requests independently.

The advantages of the proposed changes

The registered draft laws can be seen as a logical response to the problems that stand in the way of effectively investigating and trying criminal proceedings. They almost entirely remove the risk of proceedings being closed over investigation deadlines and the problem of procedural rights being used to the detriment of the process, and they fill some of the procedural gaps.

Removing the option to close a case over an expired investigation period

Pre-trial investigation deadlines were introduced by the “Lozovyi amendments,” passed in 2017. They were supposedly meant to guard against unjustifiably long criminal prosecution, yet the problem of pressure on business does not appear to have been solved. Their partial repeal in 2023 did not fully fix the issue, because the law retained the rule in Article 284(1)(10) of the CPC of Ukraine, which still allows criminal proceedings to be closed over a purely formal expiry of the pre-trial investigation deadline — even by just one to three days.

The most recent telling example is the Dubnevych case concerning the misappropriation of Ukrzaliznytsia’s funds. On May 26, 2026, the HACC granted a defense motion and, on this ground, closed the criminal proceedings against former MP Yaroslav Dubnevych and his accomplices over the misappropriation of UAH 93 million from Ukrzaliznytsia. This is not the first time the case has been closed — back in September 2022, the HACC had already closed it on the same ground.

In its monitoring of the HACC, TI Ukraine has stressed that closing criminal proceedings is a disproportionate response and an opening for manipulation and abuse. The European Commission stated directly that the provision on the automatic closure of criminal proceedings over expired pre-trial investigation deadlines must be removed from the CPC of Ukraine — that is, the element of the “Lozovyi amendments” still in force must finally be scrapped.

 In this context, an equally important innovation could be the introduction of a maximum 18-month pre-trial investigation period after a notification of suspicion, where the investigation requires a significant volume of investigative (search) and procedural actions, as well as international cooperation. Even longer investigation periods are permitted under the laws of European countries such as Latvia and Italy.

Building safeguards against abuse and delay

Until now, Ukraine’s criminal justice system has lacked adequate tools for responding to abuse, which can seriously stall investigations and trials — and some bad-faith participants make active use of this.

In its latest report monitoring HACC cases, the TI Ukraine team found that it is most often the defense that resorts to abuse during hearings, doing everything to drag them out through unfounded recusals, the non-appearance of participants, unreasonably long addresses, and the filing of identical applications and motions.

Because of these abuses, a significant share of HACC cases were, or still are, at risk of closure. Perhaps the loudest example is the gas embezzlement episode in the “Onyshchenko case” involving Roman Nasirov, where unreasonably long addresses, the mobilization of the defendant, non-appearance of defense counsel, and the like were all used. As a result, the case ended in a verdict only a few days before the statute of limitations for holding Nasirov liable expired.

Draft Law No. 15333 offers real tools to combat such tactics, including the ability to halt unreasonably long addresses and set time limits on them; to continue a hearing in the absence of certain participants and bring in new defense counsel or prosecutors; to bring in FLA defense counsel where a retained lawyer fails to appear twice in a row; to have the court decline to consider repetitive and offensive motions; and to permanently enshrine in Article 335 of the CPC of Ukraine the rule that a trial cannot be automatically suspended solely because the defendant has been mobilized.

International experience likewise confirms that the proposed changes are entirely workable and effective.

Extending NABU’s jurisdiction to more top officials

Alongside the package of procedural changes, in Draft Law No. 15334 the MPs propose extending NABU’s jurisdiction to:

• the leadership of the SBI, the Office of the President of Ukraine, and the state, military, and military-civil administrations of the regions and of the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol;
• senior command staff of the ESBU and the SBI;
• deputy heads and members of the supervisory boards and executive bodies (management boards, directorates) of state-owned and municipal large enterprises.

Tellingly, two years ago NABU exposed suspected corruption by former Deputy Head of the Office of the President Andrii Smyrnov. And the defense tried to exploit the imperfections of Ukraine’s Criminal Code and CPC to convince the investigating judge that NABU had no right to investigate the case against him — in particular because Smyrnov’s position does not appear in the list of cases falling under NABU’s jurisdiction set out in Article 216(5) of the CPC of Ukraine. The European Commission, too, insisted on extending jurisdiction to cover all top positions.

At the same time, the MPs are refining the mechanism and time limits for requesting and transferring cases to NABU under the rules of jurisdiction.

What should be improved

Although both draft laws resolve a large share of the pressing problems, certain provisions should, in our view, be refined so that they can be applied effectively in practice in the future.

Do not hand prosecutors judicial oversight over the extension of deadlines

Returning to the heads of prosecutor’s offices the power to extend pre-trial investigation deadlines to 6 and 12 months creates a risk of weaker judicial oversight over compliance with reasonable pre-trial investigation time. After all, the proposed approach means such a decision would be taken by a representative of the prosecution — a party with a procedural interest in prolonging the investigation.

This weakens the principle of adversarial proceedings. Judicial oversight in such matters is a guarantee that any extension will be justified, proportionate, and necessary.

The Constitutional Court has not expressed a position on the need for judicial oversight over the extension of pre-trial investigation deadlines. But its position on such oversight generally comes down to this: the rule of law makes judicial oversight over any interference with a person’s right to liberty mandatory. Criminal proceedings are themselves a precondition for applying the harshest restrictions on human rights and freedoms compared to any other legal process. Judicial oversight over the extension of pre-trial investigation deadlines — on which the duration of such restrictions depends — is therefore no less important a guarantee of respect for human rights and freedoms during criminal prosecution.

Such proposals may also raise doubts in light of the constitutional prohibition on narrowing the content and scope of existing rights and freedoms when adopting new laws or amending existing ones. The extension of pre-trial investigation deadlines to 6, 12, and 18 months should therefore remain within the competence of the investigating judge.

Improve the existing mechanism for overseeing reasonable investigation time

Along with removing the automatic closure of cases over expired investigation deadlines (Article 284(1)(10) of the CPC of Ukraine), the authors of the draft law propose giving participants in criminal proceedings the right to ask an investigating judge to order the prosecutor to complete the pre-trial investigation.

A similar provision appeared in government Draft Law No. 12367. At the time, TI Ukraine pointed out that this could place a substantial additional burden on the court system. To reduce that burden and to improve the legislation systematically, the changes should be made not to Article 284 of the CPC of Ukraine, which governs the list of grounds for closing criminal proceedings, but to Article 308, which governs the procedure for challenging an investigator’s or prosecutor’s failure to observe reasonable time limits. Specifically, if a higher-level prosecutor rejects the complaint, the interested party could then turn to an investigating judge, who should be able to issue the very decisions that the MPs propose adding to Article 284 of the CPC of Ukraine.

In addition, the law could expressly provide that evidence whose gathering was initiated outside the pre-trial investigation period (with certain exceptions) is inadmissible. This could serve both as a safeguard against abuse and as a proper incentive in investigations. 

It is therefore more sensible not to create a new mechanism, but to improve the tools that already exist.

Regulate more clearly the suspension of court proceedings due to military service

In 2025, after Nasirov’s “sudden” mobilization, Parliament limited the ability to suspend the hearing of grave and especially grave corruption cases based solely on the defendant’s formal status as someone performing military service. In such proceedings, the court must establish that the defendant is objectively unable to take part in the proceedings — including remotely — because of their direct involvement in measures to defend Ukraine.

Draft Law No. 15333 proposes moving this logic to Article 335 of the CPC of Ukraine and extending it beyond grave and especially grave corruption offenses to other criminal proceedings as well. On the whole, this is the right approach.

However, the proposed wording remains too broad. It could allow proceedings to be suspended even where the defendant is in a location from which remote participation in a hearing is realistic and does not interfere with the performance of their military duties.

It would therefore be advisable to provide that a trial may be suspended only where the defendant have no objective possibility of taking part in hearings because of their genuine involvement in Ukraine’s defense efforts directly in the areas where those efforts are carried out — on temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine, or in the zone between the positions of the defense forces and those of the aggressor state’s troops — during the period of those efforts, and where they are carrying out combat (special) tasks. 

Allow the court to impose monetary penalties for non-appearance without valid reasons

Countering the abuse of procedural rights could be reinforced by a monetary penalty for defense lawyers who fail to appear when summoned to court without valid reasons. The statistics of the HACC alone show that the second most common reason for adjourning hearings is the non-appearance of defense counsel — over five years of the court’s work, 588 hearings were adjourned for this reason.

In monitoring HACC cases, TI Ukraine has repeatedly observed how the non-appearance of defense counsel at hearings seriously affects the reasonable timeframes for hearing a case. Striking examples of this were the hearings in the case against the former Minister of Justice under Yanukovych and the case against the judges of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv.

So, in addition to the suspect, the defendant, witnesses, victims, and other participants, it makes sense to also allow the court to fine defense lawyers who fail to appear at hearings without valid reasons.

Allow the Head of SAPO to open investigations against MPs

Along with the changes to the Head of SAPO’s powers regarding international legal assistance, it is logical to remove an obstacle to investigating cases involving Members of Parliament. The point is that only the Prosecutor General can open an investigation against MPs.

Such changes are one of the EU’s key requirements. We have also repeatedly seen how this can stall an investigation and, with it, diminish the quality and quantity of the evidence gathered. One of the first notable examples of a case against an MP was the investigation into Oleksandr Yurchenko. In September 2020, the NABU publicly reported that it had sent Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova the materials and a draft suspicion for registering the proceedings and serving the notification of suspicion. However, the Prosecutor General’s Office replied that it saw insufficient grounds for registering proceedings.

To avoid such situations, the Head of the SAPO should be empowered to open investigations against Members of Parliament independently, without the Prosecutor General.

Conclusions

Overall, Draft Laws No. 15333 and No. 15334 are a systematic and long-overdue response to a set of problems that for years have hampered the effective investigation and trial of top-level corruption cases — from the automatic closure of proceedings over a formal expiry of deadlines to procedural abuse and gaps in NABU’s jurisdiction. Of course, resolving all of them will require far more changes.

TI Ukraine supports the adoption of both draft laws, as they bring Ukraine closer to meeting the requirements of the Ukraine Facility, the Rule of Law Roadmap, and the Kachka-Kos Plan. At the same time, several points are worth improving during committee review and consideration in the session hall.

In Draft Law No. 15333:

• retain judicial oversight over the extension of pre-trial investigation deadlines to 6, 12, and — should this draft law pass — 18 months;
• strengthen the existing mechanisms for responding to violations of reasonable time limits, in particular by improving Article 308 of the CPC of Ukraine, which sets out the procedure for challenging an investigator’s or prosecutor’s failure to observe reasonable time limits, by establishing clear consequences where a prosecutor takes no action once deadlines have expired;
• set out a rule under which court proceedings could be suspended due to military service only where the defendant is objectively unable to take part in hearings — including remotely — because of their direct involvement in measures to defend Ukraine;
• allow monetary penalties to be imposed on defense counsel for non-appearance.

In Draft Law No. 15334, add a provision allowing the Head of the SAPO to open criminal proceedings against Members of Parliament.

Fine-tuning these provisions will preserve the balance between the effectiveness of criminal prosecution and the guarantees of the rights of those involved in the process.

This publication has been produced with financial support from Norway. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Transparency International Ukraine and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the Government of Norway.

How do things stand now?

The current Criminal Code provides that the running of the statute of limitations is suspended only where a person has evaded pre-trial investigation or trial. Meanwhile, a defendant’s military service — which may lead to the suspension of the court proceedings against them — does not, for instance, suspend the running of the statute of limitations.

Referring a case to court likewise does not suspend the running of the statute of limitations. What is more, these periods continue to run right up until the verdict enters into legal force — until the 30-day window for appeal expires, or until appellate review is completed.

What are the advantages of the proposed changes?

Draft Law No. 15354 responds to the fact that in a number of NABU cases the statute of limitations expires — something we have noted more than once as part of our multi-year project monitoring cases at the High Anti-Corruption Court. This often happens because of the considerable time taken by international legal assistance, lengthy expert examinations, the late transfer of a case to the NABU, or the abuse of procedural rights by participants in court proceedings.

For example, in October 2025 the HACC closed the criminal proceedings against former Minister of Infrastructure Andrii Pyvovarskyi due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. In July this year, the HACC closed — again on statute-of-limitations grounds — the case of Liudmyla Solotva, who was accused of aiding and abetting Nasirov. The case of Roman Nasirov himself was also on the verge of being closed. It was heard across two instances for 6.5 years and was accompanied by numerous delays on the part of the defense, so that Nasirov received his verdict just a few days before the ten-year statute of limitations set by the Criminal Code expired.

A similar problem appears in other high-profile proceedings — for instance, in the UMCC case, where one of the defendants mobilized, which almost completely paralyzed the normal course of the trial. And while no proper trial on the merits takes place, the statute of limitations in the case keeps running.

This is why the very idea behind the draft law is correct: the statute of limitations should not stand in the way of holding to account persons who are performing military service. Nor should the completion of appellate review become the point at which the counting of these periods stops.

If a case has already been referred to court, the state should not lose the chance to obtain a decision on the merits merely because the trial is taking a long time, or because participants in the process are dragging it out. This is especially important for corruption cases.

What should be improved

Interrupting, rather than suspending, the statute of limitations could offer more guarantees to participants in court proceedings 

The authors of the draft law propose that the statute of limitations be suspended upon the referral of the indictment to court only in cases of grave and especially grave corruption criminal offenses. And there is only one ground for resuming the periods — a court ruling returning the indictment. 

However, the Criminal Code provides that the special, undifferentiated limitation period — after which a person who has committed a crime of any gravity is released from criminal liability, even if they evaded justice — is 15 years. This conclusion was also confirmed by the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court in 2023. The same period is set for especially grave criminal offenses, while for grave ones it is 10 years. It therefore follows from the proposed changes that, compared with the current rules, only 5 additional years would be “gained” for grave corruption crimes.

At the same time, we should point out the not-entirely-successful drafting of the amendments. Under the proposed version of Article 49(2) of the Criminal Code, the sentence “In these cases, the running of the limitation period resumes from the day the person surrenders with a confession or is detained, and from the time a criminal misdemeanor was committed — after five years” is placed immediately after the description of the new ground for suspension — mobilization or acceptance for military service under contract. As a result, in light of the amendments, this wording — “the person surrenders with a confession” and “is detained” — will apply to the person’s mobilization, rather than (as the authors presumably intended) to the person’s evasion of pre-trial investigation or trial. 

This drafting inaccuracy creates a real risk that the new rule will be interpreted ambiguously.

Beyond this, the very approach of suspending the statute of limitations upon the referral of the indictment to court creates additional problems:

• there is no substantive rule on the grounds for resuming the running of the limitation period, since the return of an indictment does not happen all that often in NABU and SAPO practice;
• extending this rule only to cases of grave and especially grave corruption criminal offenses is an inaccurate and unjustified narrowing. In that case, the legislator’s response leaves out the less grave corruption and corruption-related crimes provided for in Articles 366-2 and 366-3, Article 369-2(1) and (2), Article 369(1), Article 364(1), and Article 191(2).

In view of this, a more balanced solution would be not to suspend the statute of limitations from the moment the indictment is referred to court, but to interrupt its running. Alternatively, it could be provided that these periods run until the first-instance court delivers its verdict.

Such an approach would preserve the incentive for the parties and the court to hear a case without unjustified delays, while at the same time preventing situations in which a case has already been heard on the merits and a verdict delivered, yet the person is released from liability solely because the statute of limitations expired at the appellate-review stage. That said, if the limitation period is to run until the first-instance court delivers its verdict, the court should be given robust tools to counter the abuse of procedural rights

Changes to the statute-of-limitations rules should cover all corruption and corruption-related offenses

The authors of the draft law propose suspending the statute of limitations in the event of military service only where a case is investigated by NABU or referred to court by a SAPO prosecutor.

The problem is that corruption and top-level corruption cases are sometimes investigated not only by NABU, but also by the SBI, the National Police, and the ESBU. According to the statistics, most corruption verdicts are handed down by local courts on the basis of materials from these bodies; and although such cases are generally less complex, there are far more of them. According to the latest data for 2025, local courts convicted 3,268 persons of corruption and corruption-related criminal offenses provided for in the note to Article 45 of the Criminal Code.

Since the Criminal Code already contains a list of such criminal offenses, it would be more systematic, in terms of legal regulation, to suspend the running of the statute of limitations on account of a suspect’s/defendant’s mobilization not only in NABU and SAPO cases, but in all cases concerning the criminal offenses provided for in the note to Article 45 of the Criminal Code.

In addition, Draft Law No. 15333 proposes to improve the grounds for suspending a trial by extending them not only to persons accused of a grave or especially grave corruption criminal offense, but to all criminal proceedings. It is therefore hard to trace any clear logic in why the running of the statute of limitations should be suspended in the event of military service only where a case is investigated by NABU or referred to court by a SAPO prosecutor. 

Accordingly, the suspension of the statute of limitations on account of a defendant’s mobilization should be extended to all criminal proceedings concerning corruption and corruption-related criminal offenses provided for in the note to Article 45 of the Criminal Code.

The statute-of-limitations rules require comprehensive changes 

Given that the authors of the draft law acknowledge the problems with regulating the statute of limitations, a comprehensive overhaul of this institution should be ensured.

As part of its monitoring of HACC cases, TI Ukraine has systematically examined the question of the statute of limitations in corruption cases and concluded that the statute of limitations for bringing a person to criminal liability needs to be improved in several directions: 

• proportionately strengthening criminal liability for certain criminal offenses, which would in turn lengthen the corresponding limitation periods; 
• establishing additional grounds for suspending the running of the limitation period — for example, mutual legal assistance in criminal proceedings; 
• changing the end point for calculating the statute of limitations for bringing a person to criminal liability (to the delivery of the first-instance verdict, rather than the entry of the verdict into legal force).

Comparing the statute of limitations for bringing offenders to criminal liability for various corruption crimes in EU member states and in Ukraine, we can conclude that for certain acts our limitation periods are unjustifiably short. This is most pronounced for obstruction of justice, but also for bribery in the public sector (Articles 368 and 369 of the Criminal Code), bribery in the private sector (Article 354 of the Criminal Code), trading in influence (Article 369-2 of the Criminal Code), and abuse of office (Article 364 of the Criminal Code).

Moreover, the legislation of foreign states and international recommendations point to a much broader list of grounds for suspending the statute of limitations. In particular, the 2007 UN Model Law on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters provides for suspending the running of the limitation period for the time a mutual legal assistance request is being executed. The criminal legislation of EU member states additionally singles out, as grounds for suspension, the existence of immunity and other legally established obstacles to prosecution, the minority or illness of the alleged offender, and the referral of a case for additional investigation. Among the grounds for interrupting the periods, a number of jurisdictions include the initiation of a criminal prosecution, the issuance of an international or European Arrest Warrant, the official recognition of a person as a suspect, as well as any procedural notification to the person — a summons, a call to appear, or the holding of a confrontation.

In light of the above, consideration should be given to expanding the list of grounds for suspending the limitation period, at least as regards the performance of procedural actions within international cooperation. Such an expansion should be accompanied by appropriate safeguards against abuse by pre-trial investigation bodies — in particular, by empowering the court that will decide on release from criminal liability to verify that the relevant procedural actions within international cooperation were justified and genuine.

Therefore, to improve the statute of limitations for bringing a person to criminal liability, the penalties for certain corruption criminal offenses should be proportionately increased, and the performance of procedural actions within international cooperation should be added as a ground for suspending their running.

Conclusions

Overall, Draft Law No. 15354 is something of a response to problems that have already arisen repeatedly during the hearing of corruption cases. We recommend that the Verkhovna Rada adopt Draft Law No. 15354 as a basis, subject to revision. 

Ahead of the second reading, the text of the draft law should be refined on the following points:

1. not to suspend the statute of limitations from the moment the indictment is referred to court, but instead either to interrupt its running — that is, to start counting it anew — or to provide that these periods run until the first-instance court delivers its verdict;
2. to extend the suspension of the statute of limitations on account of a defendant’s mobilization to all criminal proceedings concerning corruption and corruption-related criminal offenses provided for in the note to Article 45 of the Criminal Code;
3. to proportionately increase the penalties for certain corruption criminal offenses, and to add the performance of procedural actions within international cooperation as a ground for suspending their running.

This publication has been produced with financial support from Norway. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Transparency International Ukraine and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the Government of Norway.

How the sale of seized assets was previously regulated

Before July 1 of this year, the sale of seized assets was governed not by a single act but by several government resolutions at once. A significant update to the process took place in November 2023, when auctions became possible on the Prozorro.Sale marketplaces.

The central figure in the process was not ARMA itself but a separate auction organizer — a legal entity that ARMA selected on a competitive basis under a dedicated procedure (Resolution No. 558). The organizer received a fee of 1% of the sale price for assets in Ukraine and up to 15% for assets abroad, and it was the organizer that was responsible for preparing the lot, valuing it, storing it, and supporting the auction. 

The auction had three consecutive stages: the first involved three rounds of real-time price increases; the second (a “repeat” auction) started at 50% of the first auction’s price; and the third (a “repeat” auction using the step-by-step price-reduction method, that is, a Dutch auction) likewise started at 50% of the initial price. The number of price-reduction steps at the third stage was not separately fixed in the Procedure — it was set by the operating regulations of the electronic trading system, meaning the administrator could change it without amending the resolution.

The auction preparation period was framed as a minimum — no fewer than 15 calendar days for real estate and no fewer than 10 days for perishable movable property.

The set of persons barred from purchasing assets was based on the official FATF list of states, the threshold of “10% or more of the shares of a resident of the aggressor state,” and a standard list of sanctions- and offshore-related restrictions. The Procedure contained no express ban on persons related to the asset’s owner or to a suspect or accused in the case — meaning a party to the proceedings could, in theory, buy back their own asset through a front person.

The sale of assets abroad required the competitive selection of a foreign organizer, and ARMA was obliged to inform the Cabinet of Ministers of the winner of that competition, whereupon the Cabinet adopted a separate decision recorded in its minutes.

What has changed in the sale of seized assets

The ARMA is now the auction organizer itself, and the separate, competitively selected organizer legal entity no longer exists.

A new anti-corruption rule has appeared — a ban on the purchase of an asset by persons related to the asset’s owner or to a suspect or accused, with a detailed list of indicators of relatedness (drawn from the Tax Code, the Law on Corruption Prevention, and the Law on Joint-Stock Companies. This closes a loophole that the old regulation had left open.

A maximum auction preparation period has been set — no more than 15 days for immovable property and 10 for movable property — which may speed up the turnover of assets.

The number of Dutch-auction steps at the third stage is now fixed directly in the Procedure — 99 steps — rather than left to the discretion of the administrator’s regulations.

The sale of assets abroad has been simplified — instead of the competitive selection of a foreign organizer and a mandatory minuted decision by the Cabinet of Ministers, there are now three clear methods of sale with no additional approval procedure: sale by the competent authorities of the foreign state, transfer of the asset to Ukraine, or another method provided for by an international treaty.

In the list of ineligible buyers, the aggressor state is now supplemented by an express reference to the Republic of Belarus, and the ownership criterion has been changed from “10% of shares” to “holders of a significant participation.”

The auction process itself has accordingly been simplified, and can be represented schematically as follows:

1. Valuation and decision — the ARMA values the asset and decides to sell it.
2. Announcement — published at least 7 days before the auction.
3. Registration — participants submit applications and pay a registration fee and a security deposit.
4. First auction — ascending price, three rounds of 3 minutes each, 1% increment.
5. If unsold, a second auction — the starting price is halved, again ascending.
6. If unsold, a third auction — Dutch format, with the price reduced automatically (99 steps).
7. Signing of the auction record and payment — the winner pays within 5 days.
8. Transfer of ownership — after payment; the seizure must additionally be lifted through the investigating judge.

Areas for improvement and points of risk

Although the adopted Procedure regulates the procedural aspects of the sale of seized assets reasonably well, certain points still call for attention. Some of them fall outside the Procedure itself and relate to adjacent provisions of the law. Others are matters that cannot be conclusively settled at the rule-making stage and only surface in the course of practical application, and therefore require further refinement as experience accumulates.

No notification of the owner and no right to appeal the sale decision

International standards on the sale of seized assets recommend that the owner and interested third parties be notified of the sale decision and have the right to challenge it in court. Current legislation contains no such mechanism: ARMA’s decision to sell an asset is published on ARMA’s official website, but this is more a matter of informing the general public than a personal notification.

The situation is complicated by the fact that the legal basis for the sale itself — the investigating judge’s ruling on the transfer of property for sale, issued under Article 100(6)(2) of the CPC of Ukraine — is currently not subject to appeal at all. By Resolution No. 17 of September 12, 2025, the Plenum of the Supreme Court has already applied to the Constitutional Court with a petition on the unconstitutionality of Articles 309 and 392 of the CPC of Ukraine, specifically in the part that makes such a ruling impossible to appeal.

It would therefore be advisable to address this problem proactively and provide for the possibility of appealing rulings on the transfer of property for sale.

No methodology for forming lots

The adopted act assigns the division of an asset into lots to the organizer (now ARMA itself) without setting any criteria or methodology for such division. Yet the sale of land on the Borzhava polonyna (460 hectares and ski-lift stations, an asset in the State Investment Project case) shows what unregulated discretion leads to:

• the asset was put up for auction three times through three different organizers, with the valuation falling successively from more than UAH 1.067 billion to UAH 347.9 million;
• the lots (245 + 208 + 41 land plots) were formed on the basis of a letter from SAPO, and ARMA’s justification amounted to a general assertion of “maximum commercial appeal,” with no public methodology or criteria;
• despite the repeat auctions, buyer interest remained low right up to the final successful sale — the asset was ultimately bought by persons related to the parties in the original case, though ARMA did not sign the sale record.

Because the structure and number of lots directly affect the range of potential buyers, market appeal, and the final price, the absence of a standardized approach to forming them is a systemic risk — the matter is left entirely to ARMA’s discretion, without any procedural safeguards or requirements to give reasons.

It would therefore be desirable for ARMA’s internal acts to define the procedure for dividing an asset or assets into lots, including criteria for combining or splitting property, requirements for justifying the chosen lot configuration, and the recording of that justification in the materials accompanying the sale decision.

The need for active monitoring of asset sales

The Borzhava case also shows the value of systematic rather than reactive oversight of how auctions unfold. The Prozorro.Sale analytics module makes it possible to track in real time precisely the indicators that in this case became problematic only after the fact: the number of failed auction attempts for the same asset, the pace at which the appraised value dropped between attempts, changes of organizers, and the intervals elapsing between them.

This also matters given that in 2025 the Prozorro.Sale system hosted 184 electronic auctions for the sale of seized assets, of which only 41 were successful. In that same year, ARMA received 33 rulings on the sale of assets, of which only 4 were carried out. In total, sales were completed under 20 rulings over the past year.

These results may be linked both to the complexity of the previous sale procedure (a legal entity had first to be selected on a competitive basis to act as auction organizer) and to the fact that not all of the assets transferred for sale were attractive to buyers — in part because of the lots in which they were offered.

Regular tracking of asset sales should therefore be ensured, so that potentially problematic cases can be addressed before a sale is completed rather than afterwards, when recovery is more difficult.

Conclusions and recommendations

The adopted resolution is a sound step in reforming the mechanism for selling seized assets. It also incorporates a substantial body of established international standards on auction transparency and conflict-of-interest prevention. The basic auction mechanics have remained stable throughout, which reduces the risks of the transition period.

That said, the adoption of this act is the beginning, not the end, of work on the asset-sale process. Some of the problems identified fall outside the secondary legislation itself and require changes at the level of primary law. Others — the division of assets into lots, and the quality and speed of sales in practice — cannot be exhaustively regulated in advance and emerge only in specific cases.

To strengthen these processes, we can recommend the following:

• To the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers — respond to the constitutional petition concerning the right to appeal rulings on the transfer of property for sale by making the corresponding amendments to the CPC of Ukraine;
• To ARMA — regulate, through internal acts, the methodology for forming lots, so as to prevent a recurrence of situations in which assets lose value.

At this stage, then, what matters is not only targeted legislative fine-tuning but also the need for systematic monitoring of how the new Procedure is applied in practice. 

Key nuances of the Grand Chamber’s decisions

In the Burkhan case, the Grand Chamber noted that while information from covert-action records can be used in disciplinary proceedings, it cannot serve as a ready-made conclusion. The HCJ must carefully assess it first.

The Supreme Court also explained that what matters in a disciplinary case is not the type of evidence — including information from covert-action records — but a fair procedure for using such data. The HCJ must independently assess such materials and determine whether they confirm a specific disciplinary offense, even before the underlying criminal proceedings conclude.

At the same time, the ruling includes an important safeguard against wrongful disciplinary action based on such materials. The HCJ may discipline a judge before a criminal case concludes only if there are obvious, clear, and convincing signs of conduct incompatible with judicial status — and only if there is no arbitrariness, political persecution, or other improper motive, and the right to a defense has been respected. 

Acting on this basis, the HCJ dismissed DACK judge Bohdan Sanin on June 22 — one of the key figures in the DACK tapes case. Covert recordings captured him discussing court cases outside official proceedings, coordinating positions with others, and effectively allowing outside influence over judicial decisions. He was dismissed because this conduct is incompatible with judicial status.

However, if reasonable doubt remains, it must be resolved in the judge’s favor. In such cases, the HCJ must suspend disciplinary proceedings until a verdict is reached, or decline to impose liability.

How this will affect disciplinary proceedings against judges

After these rulings, the argument that covert-action materials cannot be used in disciplinary proceedings at all has far less chance of success. Judges challenging HCJ decisions will now have to prove specific procedural violations, rather than arguing that such materials are inherently inadmissible.

These rulings also give the HCJ clear guidance: beyond a general green light to use such materials, the Council must avoid citing them formally without proper assessment and justification.

In short, the Grand Chamber’s rulings stabilize HCJ practice in cases involving covert investigative action materials. They reduce the risk of a mass review of HCJ decisions already made — while still preserving real procedural safeguards for judges against the arbitrary use of criminal case materials and pressure against them.

Where things stand on the secondary legislation for ARMA’s work

The secondary instruments needed for the ARMA reform to function fully fall into the following categories: 

• institutional and organizational matters; 
• accountability and public oversight; 
• asset identification and intake into management; 
• selection of asset managers; 
• procurement of manager services; 
• asset management and oversight of it; asset disposal; 
• maintenance of the Unified State Register of Seized Assets (USRSA).

As of the second half of June 2026, nearly all the secondary legislation has been adopted; only the procedure for disposing of seized assets has yet to be updated.

The Methodology approved in June is one of the foundational elements of ARMA’s new regulatory architecture. This instrument governs the procedure for analyzing a seized asset to determine whether it can be managed effectively, and it also serves as an “entry filter” for the entire subsequent management process: without a positive conclusion from ARMA, an asset cannot be transferred into the Agency’s management.

How it used to be

Before the ARMA reform law took effect, there was no separate statutory rule on asset identification, nor any secondary instrument governing that procedure. Article 18-1 of the Law, which introduced the identification mechanism, is an entirely new provision. 

Before the reform, the practice was that the Agency issued written opinions on whether effective management of an asset could be ensured and its economic value preserved. However, the joint orders of the PGO and ARMA on the form of a request for such an opinion were never adopted, and the procedure for the Agency’s assessment of management feasibility was never regulated at the level of a Cabinet of Ministers resolution.

This produced several negative consequences: 

• ARMA took into management whatever it was given: an investigating judge’s ruling transferring an asset into management served as the sole and sufficient basis, and the Agency had no formal mechanism to assess in advance whether it could manage a particular asset effectively. As a result, assets accumulated at the Agency that it had no way of actually managing; neither the Law nor the secondary instruments required ARMA to conduct a mandatory site visit to inspect an asset before accepting it. 
•  Assets could therefore be transferred into management without proper documentation of their actual condition, which created risks of later disputes between the prosecutor and the Agency and made it impossible to plan management properly;
• the Law did not require ARMA to compare management and disposal options or assess an asset’s economic potential before deciding how to manage it;
•  interaction between prosecutors and ARMA at the stage preceding an asset’s transfer into management was ad hoc and unformalized. In practice, this led to assets being handed over with incomplete or contradictory information.

What the adopted Methodology sets out in detail 

The ARMA reform law introduced a fundamentally new model — a mandatory identification procedure as a precondition for accepting an asset into management — and the resolution adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers spells out that model at the secondary-legislation level. 

The key innovations are as follows: 

• Identification as a mandatory “entry filter.” ARMA manages only those seized assets for which a positive identification conclusion has been prepared (Article 18-1(1) of the Law). This is the first time the Agency’s right to assess management feasibility in advance has been enshrined in law;
• a standardized procedure for prosecutorial requests. The Methodology clearly defines the list of documents a prosecutor must attach to a request — title documents, a valuation report, technical specifications, photo and video materials — and sets the condition for submitting them: “where available and where doing so would not harm the criminal proceedings.” This balances ARMA’s need for information against the interests of the investigation;
• a mandatory physical inspection of the asset. The Methodology requires ARMA specialists to conduct an on-site visit to the asset’s actual location for inspection, documentation of its condition, and photo and video recording. The instruction to the relevant Interregional Territorial Department (ITD) of ARMA to accept an asset into management must be issued no later than the next business day after the request is received — a rule designed to keep the central office from stalling the start of the process;
• a comprehensive analysis of economic potential. The secondary legislation now requires ARMA to determine the optimal management approach through comparative analysis, weighing expected management income against the costs of storing and maintaining the asset. This provides the basis for a well-reasoned choice of strategy; 
• clear deadlines with a mechanism for extension. A baseline 10-day period is set for issuing a conclusion, extendable to 20 business days where grounds exist, provided a prosecutor is notified in writing within 5 business days. This removes the previous uncertainty over how long the procedure could take;
• a special regime for combat zones. The Methodology introduces a new exception — a moratorium on identifying assets located in temporarily occupied territories or areas where hostilities are underway. This resolves the previous uncertainty over such assets and ties the resumption of their identification to the official list maintained by the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories.

What to watch for during implementation

Despite the clear progress this regulation represents, its practical implementation may reveal certain shortcomings that should be tracked and promptly corrected through amendments to the relevant instruments. Some questions, moreover, were already apparent when the amendments to the ARMA Law were first adopted. 

Inconsistency with the Criminal Procedure Code

One of the key systemic risks remains the mismatch between the new identification procedure introduced by the ARMA reform law and the current version of Ukraine’s Criminal Procedure Code (CPC). Article 100 of the CPC still does not require a positive ARMA conclusion as a precondition for a prosecutor to petition an investigating judge to transfer an asset into management. In practice, the CPC still allows a prosecutor to initiate an asset’s transfer to ARMA without going through identification at all, which conflicts with the logic of the amended Law.

Article 100(6) of the CPC also does not reflect the new grounds for asset disposal introduced by Law No. 4503-IX, and the existing mechanism for notifying ARMA (Article 100(7)) remains in a provision that would now logically belong in Article 175 of the CPC, as part of the enforcement of a seizure order. The CPC’s failure to establish corresponding prosecutorial obligations regarding deadlines for responding to an ARMA conclusion, or to a notice that an asset’s economic value cannot be preserved, creates a degree of legal conflict that, in practice, is likely to be resolved in favor of the special provisions of the ARMA Law.

No consequences defined for a negative ARMA conclusion

The Methodology sets out in detail the procedure for identifying an asset and preparing the Agency’s conclusion on whether it can be managed. It does not, however, define any legal consequences for cases where ARMA formally determines that effective management of a given asset is not possible.

What happens to the asset after that? Who is required to act, and within what timeframe? Can the prosecutor apply again? These questions remain unanswered, since ARMA cannot accept such an asset into management in these cases — and if an investigating judge nonetheless issues a ruling to that effect, it will not meet the requirements of the special provision, Article 18-1 of the ARMA Law.

Conclusions and recommendations

The resolution adopted by the government is an important step toward a systemic approach to determining whether ARMA can manage a given asset effectively. It closes one of the key gaps in the ARMA reform’s secondary legislation by formalizing a procedure for identification that previously either did not exist at all or existed only in fragmentary form.

To prevent problems in law enforcement practice, the following recommendations should be considered alongside ongoing systemic monitoring of how the secondary legislation is being implemented.

1. The Criminal Procedure Code needs to be brought into line with the new model of interaction between prosecutors and ARMA. This requires amending Articles 100 and 175 of the CPC, specifically:

• aligning the list of grounds in Article 100(6) for transferring physical evidence into ARMA’s management (and for its disposal) with the provisions of the ARMA Law;
• moving to Article 175 of the CPC the requirement that a prosecutor send ARMA a copy of the seizure ruling and a request on the feasibility of transferring the asset into management no later than the next business day after the ruling is issued — together with requirements for the content of the request and the list of documents to be attached;
• establishing in Article 175 an obligation for the prosecutor to petition the investigating judge (or court) to transfer property into ARMA’s management no later than three days after receiving a positive conclusion, provided the owner has not given written consent;
• establishing an obligation for the prosecutor to petition the investigating judge or court to change the management approach or take other measures, within no more than five business days of receiving information from ARMA about circumstances that make it impossible to preserve the asset’s economic value. 

2. Regulate the consequences of a negative ARMA conclusion. Either a separate instrument or amendments to existing regulation should define what a prosecutor is to do after receiving a negative conclusion, and whether a repeat request is possible once the grounds for refusal have been addressed.

 

3. ARMA should develop internal operating procedures (a standard operating procedure) for staff at its central office and Interregional Territorial Departments, setting out in chronological order all actions relating to seized assets, with references to the specific regulatory provisions involved. Such a document would remove operational uncertainty and minimize the risk of inconsistent interpretation of similar situations.

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.