The Verkhovna Rada on Oct. 4 failed to remove major obstacles for criminal investigations and to fully eliminate lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution.
It came at a stark contrast with the parliament’s swift rulings of previous weeks, when President Volodymyr Zelensky’s party was able to single-handedly pass dozens of bills a day.
For instance, on Sept. 3 the parliament lifted lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution, implementing a groundbreaking constitutional change that has been promised for over two decades.
However, on Oct. 4 the Rada undermined this breakthrough when it failed to pass a procedural law amendment allowing law enforcement agencies to wiretap and search lawmakers without the Verkhovna Rada’s approval.
“The lawmakers effectively preserved their immunity despite the cancelation of the constitutional immunity,” said the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a Kyiv-based watchdog. “The cancellation of constitutional immunity was just populism, and currently lawmakers are not prepared to give up their immunity despite having promised this to their voters.”
Denys Monastyrsky, chairman of Rada’s law enforcement committee, and the Presidential Office did not respond to requests for comment.
The Verkhovna Rada also failed to cancel an important norm of the 2017 procedural law that dramatically hampered investigations by limiting them to 18 months before a notice of suspicion is filed. If an investigation doesn’t result in a notice of suspicion in 18 months, it has to be shut down.
Moreover, parliament did not abolish the 2017 norm that blocks investigations by allowing courts to cancel notices of suspicion.
The norms were part of the 2017 amendments initiated by then-Radical Party lawmaker Andriy Lozovy.
The Anti-Corruption Action Center said that it was very hard to carry out investigations and receive international assistance within such terms.
“This restriction makes top-level corruption investigations almost impossible,” said Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board.
On the upside, the Verkhovna Rada on Oct. 4 granted the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine independent wiretapping powers. Until now, the NABU has had to rely on the Security Service of Ukraine’s wiretapping equipment, which led to leaks of information to suspects.
The Rada also abolished the amendment according to which all forensic assessments must be authorized by courts, which used to be a major obstacle for investigations.
