Long the norm in developed countries, it has been slow to take root in Ukraine. All officials would have to declare their and their families’ expenses by April 1, 2012. This provision is contained in the Law “On the Principles of Preventing and Combating Corruption,” which came into force on July 1, 2011. The new declaration form requires officials to report all their acquisitions of real properties and vehicles, as well as any other items worth over 150,000 hryvnias. However, the Constitutional Court has made things easier for MPs and civil servants on March 20, 2012, declaring this provision unconstitutional. Now, according to the court’s decision, the provision shall take effect six months later, that is, on January 1, 2012. Remarkably, the constitutional petition’s signatories included some of the people who had adopted the challenged law in the first place, that is, the 53 MPs of the Party of Regions faction.
“Ukraine leads the world today in the number of laws adopted; it is hard to even read them all, not to mention analyzing them,” president of the Ukrainian Law Society Oleh Bereziuk comments. “Whatever good laws they adopt, these would not work until there is a system of checks and balances. In the current situation, with power concentrated in the hands of one person or several groups, any law is used selectively. We live in a lawless state; the country is run in the ‘manual mode.’ The Constitutional Court’s decisions notwithstanding, corruption cannot be combated effectively without political will. This law is intended primarily to control officials, but we are still left with nothing more than empty declarations. We already know that Georgia is an example of a real fight against corruption. We must learn from their experience.”
