You're reading: Ukrainian Internal Troops could be replaced by new force subordinate to president

Parliamentary members of the Regions Party have proposed to transform the Interior Ministry's Internal Troops into a State Law Enforcement Service whose commander-in-chief will be appointed and dismissed by the Ukrainian president.

The bill, “Regarding the State Law Enforcement Service,” registered
by parliament two weeks, was authored by Regions Party deputies Vasyl
Hrytsak and Valeriy Konovaliuk.

“It is proposed to turn the Ukrainian Interior Ministry’s Internal
Troops into a special state law enforcement agency, the State Law
Enforcement Service, which will operate within the system of the
Ukrainian Interior Ministry as a military force designed to perform the
Constitutional and statutory tasks of protecting individual and civil
rights, liberties and statutory interests, the rights and interests of
legal entities, the interests of the state and its constitutional
system, sovereignty, territorial integrity and immunity against criminal
and other unlawful encroachments,” according to a memo.

Under the document, the State Law Enforcement Service is the main
auxiliary law enforcement agency designed to quantitatively increase
conventional law enforcement agencies: first of all, the police, and
secondly, all other law enforcement agencies.

The State Service will provide support for the legal system by
escorting persons in legal custody, defendants and those convicted to
imprisonment.

Other tasks of the new body will include: to protect the
constitutional system against any attempt to change or topple it and
protect the government against any attempted coup d’etat or other
unlawful encroachments.

The bill also offers the possibility of the State Law Enforcement
Service being invited to take part in international peacekeeping
operations as part of a peacekeeping force and (or) a peacekeeping
personnel.

The Commander-in-chief of the State Law Enforcement Service is a
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister. Under the Ukrainian Constitution, the
head of state is authorized to appoint and dismiss the
Commander-in-chief of the State Service.

The State Law Enforcement Service will be part of the Ukrainian
military organization, which by the Ukrainian laws and Constitution is
under sole control of the Ukrainian president.