The MPs from UKROP have submitted to the Verkhovna Rada a draft law “On amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine regarding empowerment of civil society in fight against corruption” (№ 5398). If the document is adopted, the applicants of corruption offences will have the same rights as victims in criminal proceedings, which will allow citizens to fully participate in the proceedings against corrupt officials. This has been stated by one of the authors of the bill, the MP from UKROP Vitaliy Kupriy during a press briefing in the Verkhovna Rada.
“This bill is intended to ensure the inevitable punishment for corrupt officials,” said Vitaliy Kupriy. According to him, if the bill is adopted, the applicants will be able to fully participate in pre-trial investigation and judicial processes, and to submit petitions to investigators and prosecutors. At the same time the law enforcement officers will be obliged to respond to victim’s petitions within three days.
In addition, the document provides mandatory punishment for investigators and prosecutors in the form of reprimand or dismissal for deliberate delay of cases, failure to inform about suspicion or deliberate inaction. And investigating judges, in their turn, will get the right to go beyond the indictment act in order to identify customers of corruption crimes, who “were not noticed” by the prosecutors.
“Our party considers that we should join our forces with the civil society and together do everything the authorities don’t do for being inactive, and the law enforcement agencies ignore demonstrating their helplessness,” added the MP from UKROP Iryna Konstankevych. According to her, there are many economic, political and legal factors that make corruption the norm of social life. Meanwhile corruption schemes, actions and crimes are unpunished, and the civil society cannot influence this process.
“Along with the removal of economic causes of corruption, all legal prerequisites should be also eliminated. And this is the civil society that can be an active participant of this process in the legal field. “Boyko’s drilling rigs”, criminal prices of medicines, split-up of public funds on road repairs, sold-out tenders – these are shameful symbols of our time, which are a consequence of the authorities’ inaction and helplessness of law enforcement agencies at the national level,” said Iryna Konstankevych. She has stressed that the situation is the same in the regions. Thus, in Volyn region the cases on embezzlement of 26 million hryvnias at procurement of mine in Novovolynsk and theft of nearly 2 million hryvnias in Lutskvodokanal have not been brought to court since 2015.
According to the authors of the bill, its implementation will allow to overcome corruption in the country just in a few months. The draft law was signed by the MPs from UKROP Vitaliy Kupriy, Iryna Konstankevych, Valentyn Didych, Andriy Denysenko and Viktor Shevchenko.
