The Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament) took the first step towards the restoration of e-declaration — 299 MPs supported the corresponding draft law No. 9354.
The main innovation of the draft law is that declarations will need to be submitted not only for this year, but also for previous ones (starting from 2021). Currently, the martial law allows submitting e-declarations voluntarily.
If the document is adopted in the second reading, then:
- the obligation to submit declarations within the specified time limits will be restored — 90 days from the date of entry into force of the law, with the exception of individual military personnel and persons who are in the territories affected by Russian aggression;
- all inspections by the National Agency on Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) will be resumed;
- a register of declarations with certain exceptions will open. In particular, we are talking about the concealment of settlements, which is quite justified, in contrast to the concealment of the names of all family members and third parties — most of them were indicated in past declarations;
- special inspections of civil servants will resume;
- NAPC will provide declarants with access to information about them in state registers.
Transparency International Ukraine writes that this document still has shortcomings that should be eliminated before the second reading.
In particular, according to the general rule , declarants are not obliged to enter information about the value of the property, if they do not have legal documents where the value is indicated. A big hole will be created in the issue of non-declaration of objects owned or used by the declarant or members of his family and evasion of declarants from criminal liability due to new provisions on the market value of such objects.
That is, in general, it will be difficult to prove the direct intent of the violators in a court of law, when the declarant does not have an onerous obligation to conduct any cost estimates. There is also a risk that unscrupulous declarants will be able to receive expert opinions about the undervalued market value of objects for bribes.
NAPC will lose its authority to issue clarifications on state funding of political parties, whistleblowers and declarations. The Agencyʼs competence will include only clarifications related to gifts and conflicts of interest, and other areas will have to be explained through "recommendations", which may create different practices of information submission by declarants.
The document specifies too broad exceptions for family members of declarant military servicemen and people who are in the territories affected by Russian aggression.
The declaration regime will be weakened due to the establishment of a threshold of 183 calendar days for declaring objects of ownership or use. Previously, a specific number of days was not provided, instead, half of the reporting period was important.
Officials will be able not to indicate the IBAN of the bank account in the declarations. Transparency International Ukraine notes that, in general, this is a positive norm, however, the parliament will have to additionally pass a separate law on the creation of the Unified Register of Bank Accounts in contrast to this step.