Empowering housing inspection employees with the right to have unimpeded access to apartments and houses of residents, as stipulated in a draft housing code of Ukraine, is not in line with the requirements of the Ukrainian Constitution, former head of Rivne regional administration and a member of the profile parliamentary committee, MP Viktor Matchuk, has said.
"It cannot be permitted for someone in the state to obtain the right to have unimpeded access to apartments without the agreement of citizens. The recent draft housing code allows the said inspectors to enter people’s bedrooms, to put it in crude terms," the press service of Matchuk reported.
The lawmaker said that empowering housing inspection employees with the right to unimpeded access to apartments is not in line with the Ukrainian Constitution, so the requirement is to be excluded from the housing code, as it jeopardizes the security of citizens: under the guise of the housing inspector any criminal could gain entry to any apartment.
Matchuk said that the functions of housing inspections should be inspection of apartments.
"There is logic in this, and the functions should be fulfilled. The inspector, for example, should have a chance to check if people dismantled a structural wall or changed the heating system or committed other actions threatening their safety or the safety of their neighbors. I stress that this should be done with the agreement of apartment owners or with a court ruling," he added.
The lawmaker said that Our Ukraine is demanding the urgent revision of the requirement to bring it in line with the Constitution. Otherwise, the party group would not vote in parliament for the adoption of the housing code.
Earlier the parliamentary committee for construction, town planning, utility economy and regional policy reported that it expects to obtain final proposals on amendments to the draft housing code by May 25 and hold a meeting of the committee where the amended draft housing code is presented on June 10, 2011.
