Director of the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) Artem Sytnyk has said he hopes the newly elected parliament will grant NABU the right to “eavesdrop” and return criminal liability for illegal enrichment, as well as repeal the so-called “Lozovy amendment.”
“We very much hope that a decision will be taken on granting us rights to monitor conversations, something about which we have spoken for a long time. We very much hope that responsibility for illegal enrichment will also be returned and the ‘Lozovy amendment’ will be repealed, and that other initiatives will be pursued,” Sytnyk told journalists in Kyiv on Wednesday, speaking about his hopes for the new composition of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada.
“There are initiatives, and relevant bills have been submitted, so I hope that the new parliament will work as quickly as possible and will support these initiatives,” he said.
“I am very pleased that the National Council on Anti-Corruption Policy has resumed its work, because this is exactly the platform where you can raise issues related to the work of anti-corruption bodies. And the president and human rights organizations are present on this platform,” Sytnyk said.
He noted that at present “there is a certain progress in the cases that we are investigating together with the Special Anti-corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO). There is a certain warming in relations with the SBU State Security Service after Mr. [Ivan] Bakanov actually became head of the Department ‘K’… We are optimistic.”
As reported, parliament on October 3, 2017, adopted a draft law on amending a number of codes, thus launching judicial reform. The initiative as a whole was approved with amendment No. 109 of the MP Andriy Lozovy (Radical Party of Oleh Liashko faction), who proposed changing a number of articles of the Criminal Procedure Code.
The public dubbed the change controversial. It provided for the mandatory receipt of court authorization to conduct examinations in criminal proceedings. In addition, according to the amendment, in the event of a judge’s refusal to satisfy a request for permission to search for housing or other possession, the investigator or prosecutor do not have the right to re-apply to ask the judge for a search warrant if new circumstances that the investigative judge has not considered before are not indicated.
On March 22, 2018, members of parliament partially eliminated the negative consequences of the amendment, which was taken into account when introducing amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code.
The heads of law enforcement agencies stated that the “Lozovy amendment” was the reason for large queues in the courts, which significantly complicated the work of law enforcement agencies.
Bill No. 8336 on amending the legislative acts of Ukraine regarding strengthening the guarantees of the independence of a forensic expert and independent provision of forensic expert activity is under consideration by the law-enforcement committee of the parliament.
In July 2019, Deputy Head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine Ruslan Riaboshapka announced his intention to submit to the new parliament bills that would address electronic declarations, countering corruption in the political sphere and the initiative to abolish the so-called “Lozovy amendment” which, he said “significantly complicated the effectiveness of law enforcement.”
