The Parliament proposes to decriminalize theft in the amount of up to 4 552 hryvnias

The Verkhovna Rada voted in the first reading and took as a basis draft law No. 11068, which proposes to decriminalize thefts worth up to 4 552 hryvnias and to replace responsibility for this with fines.

The MP from "Voice" Yaroslav Zheleznyak writes that 265 MPs supported the draft law.

Today, theft of property is considered petty, the value of which does not exceed 0.2 of the tax-free minimum income of citizens (302.8 hryvnias as of 2024). During martial law in the country, such thefts are automatically qualified under Part 4 of Art. 185 of the Criminal Code, punishable by 5 to 8 years of imprisonment. This leads to the courts being overloaded with cases and people being convicted of stealing, for example, bottles of whiskey.

The authors of the law explain that such punishments are not commensurate with such light crimes. The main scientific and expert department of the parliament in its commentary to the draft law also indicated that the threshold of criminal liability is too low, but if adopted, the document will entail changes to a number of articles of the Criminal Code.

The draft law proposes fines as punishment for thefts worth up to three tax-free minimum incomes of citizens (4 542 hryvnias) — up to 5 100 hryvnias for petty theft and up to 8 500 for repeated thefts during the year.