After a prolonged debate, the MPs finally passed the package of “anti-corruption” bills, required for the EU to grant visa-free travel to Ukrainians.
As The Day wrote this week, the Rada voted the package down on November 5, citing “un-EU regulations” in the bills presented to it. They allegedly allowed holding effectively any Ukrainian responsible on mere suspicion of corruption.
After the bills were amended in respective committees, the Rada was able to find a majority in support of them.
“The day before the vote, the coalition agreed to support them in exchange for some changes,” the Petro Poroshenko Bloc (PPB)’s MP Ruslan Demchak told The Day. The MPs’ objections were accommodated by amending provisions on special confiscation of third parties’ property and functions of the National Agency for the Detection, Retrieval, and Management of Assets Acquired from Corruption and Other Crimes.
Most controversial were two bills: No. 2540a (on seizure of property belonging to those suspected of corruption) and No. 2541a (on the special confiscation of property). Chairman of the Committee on Legislative Support of Law Enforcement Andrii Kozhemiakin assured the chamber from the rostrum that the documents met all European standards, and there was nothing to fear. In particular, he said that the special confiscation would apply to the corruption offenses, money laundering, terrorism, drug trafficking, and related crimes.
The stumbling block for the MPs was the provision present in the bill No. 2540a on seizure of property of third parties who may be suspected of having links with corrupt officials.
Head of the PPB faction Yurii Lutsenko insisted that seizure should be imposed only when the investigators can cite specific facts and circumstances that prove corruption links.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Petrenko argued that this amendment should not pass. According to him, seizure of all the property was the way to go, for “they do so in the EU.” Eventually, the MPs’ draft was approved, and the “evidentiary basis” was made a requirement for the seizure.
Before the vote, the speaker offered another “amendment” by promising that should the EU experts disagree with this version of the document, the president would veto it, and MPs would then have another go at it.
After the vote, MP and member of the parliamentary anti-corruption committee Viktor Chumak criticized the newly-enacted bill No. 2540a: “It is an attempt to introduce the practice of requiring investigators to prove the illegality of obtaining this or that property by a corrupt official, and allow seizure only if it can be proven. It is impossible in principle. After all, the investigation stage involves seizure of the entire property, followed by determining what items were obtained by corruption.”
“The committee copied verbatim EU directives. The government version was slightly different, for it included the seizure of the entire property of a third party without evidence and without justification. Any investigator or prosecutor would become able to seize any Ukrainian’s property, just because they so decided. The bill as adopted by the MPs requires them to justify taking such action. It will protect Ukrainians from corrupt judiciary and unreformed police,” independent member of the Committee on Preventing and Combating Corruption Yurii Derevianko responded to Chumak in a comment for The Day. He said if a third party was suspected of holding property of a corrupt official, the seizure would encompass only “the object of suspicion,” not all their property.
The bill No. 3040 “On the Creation of the Agency for Return and Management of Assets Acquired by Illegal Means” passed easily. As explained by Derevianko, it has been amended to allow selling seized property only if it can spoil quickly, or the sale is required by a court decision, or if the owner agreed to it for the property is losing its value. Of major importance was also striking down of the article that provided for transferring funds from seized deposits to the accounts of the newly created agency, for it to dispose of them as it sees fit.
The only high-profile bill to stay problematic is that amending the Labor Code to introduce the norm of non-discrimination of sexual minorities. The MPs still have no agreement on it.
