The Verkhovna Rada did something rather memorable during the week of March 21-24 – but not in a good way.
Lawmakers voted to oblige anti-corruption nongovernmental organizations and investigative journalists to publish their asset declarations online.
Aside from that, parliament failed to appoint the controversial candidate Nigel Brown as the third auditor of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine.
Parliament also passed a law that will improve the energy service market as well as an anti-bureaucratic law that allows Ukrainian businesses not to use stamps for official documents.
According to Vadym Miskyi, who heads the advocacy department at Reanimation Package of Reforms, it was “a good week for the economy, with a bad taste for democracy.”
Restrictions on NGOs
Ukrainian lawmakers in the vote on March 23 approved amendments that oblige activists with the nongovernmental anti-corruption organizations, as well as investigative journalists that work with them, to publish electronic asset declarations, in the same way state officials are required to do.
The legislation triggered a backlash from civil society, as it was seen as an effort by the authorities to crack down on their critics and restrict free speech.
The amendments were supported by the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko, the People’s Front, the Radical Party factions and three offshoots of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions – the Opposition Bloc faction, and Vidrodzhennya and the People’s Will groups.
Miskyi called the adoption of this law “the most absurd event of the week.”
“Personally I see here an attempt to take revenge on civil society for the fact that we, together with international partners, forced the Ukrainian authorities to implement electronic asset declarations, and reveal their wealth,” Miskyi told the Kyiv Post.
Budget planning
On the same day, Ukrainian parliament also voted for a law on medium-term budget planning.
According to the document, the Finance Ministry of Ukraine will have until mid-summer to work out a budget prognosis for 2018 and 2019, as well as the budget policy for 2018 to 2020.
These changes in the legislation would allow the Ukrainian government to distribute the budget money more effectively, according to the bill’s explanatory notes.
Useless stamps
The Verkhovna Rada also passed a law on March 23 aimed at reducing bureaucracy. The newly approved amendments to various existing pieces of legislation allow Ukrainian businesses, as well as the self-employed citizens, to decide whether they want to use rubber stamps in their workflow, or not.
De jure, the use of stamps in Ukraine has already been voluntary, however, a number of regulatory acts made it obligatory, experts with the Reanimation Package of Reforms say.
Since there is no control over the manufacture and storage of stamps in Ukraine, the obligation to use them was in fact senseless.
Energy service procurement
In a vote on March 23, lawmakers passed a law aimed at ensuring the functioning of an effective mechanism for energy service procurement that is in compliance with Ukraine’s current legislation.
According to the experts of the Reanimation Package of Reforms, the law will boost the development of the energy service market in Ukraine. It also meets Ukraine’s obligations under the European Union’s Energy Efficiency Directive. Under the directive, all EU countries, as well as those who have also implemented the directive, are required to use energy more efficiently at all stages of the energy chain – from production to final consumption.
Auditor for National Anti-Corruption Bureau
Early this week, on March 21, Ukraine’s parliament, under strong pressure from activists, voted against appointing an auditor of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine who was considered controversial and who was backed by President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc, the People’s Front and former allies of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych.
The appointment of the auditor, British citizen Nigel Brown, was seen as an effort by Poroshenko and his allies to restrict the bureau’s independence and potentially fire its chief, Artem Sytnyk. The bureau’s chief can be fired as a result of an audit.
Activists from the anti-corruption watchdog organizations and reform-minded lawmakers later in the week suggested several independent candidates for a NABU auditor: Martha Boersch, a U.S. attorney who successfully prosecuted ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko; Carlos Castresana Fernandez, a Spanish prosecutor who prosecuted 150 top officials at the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, and Giovanni Kessler, the director-general of the European Anti-Fraud Office.
