The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, took the initiative to legally equate corruption with treason during martial law. In an interview with the 1+1 TV channel, the head of state said that the Verkhovna Rada will receive the relevant bill in the coming week.
The President noted that such a tool against corrupt officials will not be effective on a permanent basis, but it is very appropriate for the period of war. On the other hand, Volodymyr Zelenskyy does not know whether the legislators will support this project and promised not to put pressure on his faction in the Verkhovna Rada.
In turn, as the "Mirror of the Week" publication claims with reference to its sources in the Office of the President and NABU, this draft law will provide for the investigation of corruption facts as treason not by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, but by the Security Service of Ukraine.
"Initially, the idea was as follows: to amend the legislation, according to which all corruption cases investigated in the field of national security and exceeding 24 million hryvnias should be investigated by the Security Service of Ukraine. NABU was offered to keep corruption smaller than 24 million," ZN.UA told OPU.
Currently, as the publication claims, it is not about taking away the right to conduct major anti-corruption investigations from NABU, but about giving the SBU the right to conduct them as well.
ElitExpert asked well-known lawyers to find out to what extent this initiative of Volodymyr Zelenskyi is possible from a legal point of view, and what are its pros and cons.
Oleksandr Ryabets, founder and managing partner of the legal company "Legal Partner", Chairman of the Public Organization "Union of Lawyers of the Odesa Region" talked about the possible consequences of this decision.
"Such an initiative may be convenient for the president's entourage, because in this case corruption crimes will be investigated not by the relatively independent NABU and SAP, as now, but by the Security Service of Ukraine. And this is quite a double bell, because by law the SBU is fully under the control of the president.
From a purely legal point of view, in order to implement this decision, there must be appropriate changes to the Criminal Code. But, in my opinion, this is still a more populist proposal, since it is NABU and SAP that enjoy the greatest trust in Ukrainian society, and also, which is very important, have significant support in the West.
Another point is the similarity of punishments. As with corruption crimes, so treason — there is confiscation of property; for treason, a rather long term of punishment is prescribed, for corruption, too, but less than for treason. Therefore, if the authorities believe that the punishment for corrupt officials is too small, it would be possible to simply increase the terms of punishment. It is also unclear how successfully the law enforcement agencies will investigate the facts of major corruption, which are now often written about by journalists.", - he noted.
In turn, Ukrainian political scientist, lawyer, and management expert in the governmental and non-governmental sectors, Oleksiy Buryachenko, believes that the president's position was influenced by the request of Ukrainian society that the fight against corruption should be a priority during the war.
"Numerous corruption cases, such as the situation with Odessa military commissar Borisov, undermine national security, and this is absolutely obvious. Therefore, the military-political leadership could not help but react to it, I understand their motivation. But in general, the president's initiative has a number of legal issues that still need to be clarified.
For my part, if we are talking about the crimes of top law enforcement officers, civil servants who profit from their official position during the war, I support such a step, but, again, the criteria must be clearly spelled out. Perhaps - a certain amount of damage caused to the state, as well as other damage that cannot be measured in numbers. Because, for example, if mobilization fails as a result of corrupt actions, then this is really treason.
It will be necessary to approach such regulatory changes with great legal care, but in general, this idea can be implemented, and what's more, it is supported by Ukrainian society. Perhaps they are not used to this, but during the struggle for our independence, such decisions can be justified.", - emphasized the expert.
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