The National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) has examined draft laws №13271, №13271-1 and №13271-2, which propose amendments to criminal, anti-corruption and administrative offence legislation. NACP has come to the unequivocal conclusion that the provisions of all three draft laws will negatively affect the effectiveness of existing corruption prevention mechanisms. This primarily concerns such financial control instruments as full audits of declarations and monitoring of the lifestyle of officials. A letter with the relevant position has been sent to the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Law Enforcement.
NACP considers the amendments to Article 51-4 of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Prevention of Corruption’ (the Law) proposed in draft laws No. 13271-1 and No. 13271-2 to be completely unacceptable. They limit lifestyle monitoring to the period of service and allow only property, income and expenses that appeared during that period to be checked. This creates the possibility of legalising corrupt assets acquired before entering public service or sold after leaving office.
It should be emphasised that the proposed changes to the restrictions on lifestyle monitoring of declarants create enormous risks for non-fulfilment of obligations to the International Monetary Fund, as the Letter of Intent of the Government of Ukraine and the National Bank of Ukraine to the International Monetary Fund and the Memorandum on Economic and Financial Policies of 21 March 2025 provide for the need to maximise the scope of investigations into lifestyle monitoring (para. 64).
Most of the parliamentary initiatives raise serious concerns. For example, draft law No. 13271 provides for restrictions on the scope of full audits of declarations and the effective abolition of the institution of repeat full audits of declarations, which will create immunity for corrupt practices. This draft law also establishes a presumption of accuracy of data automatically transferred to declarations from registers and exempts declarants from liability for any discrepancies in such data. In addition, this draft law contains risks of illegal collection of information about third parties in the event of the implementation of provisions on the automated transfer of data to the declaration form regarding persons indicated as family members without prior confirmation of their status. The proposed changes regarding the application of individual clarifications by the NACP allow the clarifications provided to specific persons to be extended to an indefinite circle of entities, which contradicts the current law.
The National Agency calls on the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Law Enforcement to prevent the destruction of effective financial control tools, the weakening of personal responsibility of declarants and the disruption of Ukraine's international obligations to the EU and the IMF. NACP also emphasises that the amendments proposed by MPs contradict Ukraine's European integration commitments and the recommendations of the European Commission.
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Ukraine has demonstrated to the world that that the country can defend itself against a full-scale invasion and at the same time improve its protection against corruption to a level close to the international standards of OECD and EU countries. Reducing anti-corruption tools will lead to a reversal of these results.
It should be noted that the IMF has repeatedly expressed its support for the NACP and the preservation of financial control tools, in particular in April 2025 and May 2025.
For reference
*This refers to draft laws of Ukraine:
- ‘On Amendments to the Criminal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences and other laws of Ukraine regarding the improvement of the procedure for bringing to justice persons authorised to perform functions of the state or local self-government’ with register No. 13271 of 09.05.2025,
- ‘On Amendments to the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences, the Criminal Code of Ukraine, the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and other legislative acts of Ukraine regarding increasing responsibility for corruption or corruption-related offences’ with register No. 13271-1 dated 23 May 2025
- ‘On Amendments to the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences, the Criminal Code of Ukraine, the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and other legislative acts of Ukraine regarding increasing liability for corruption or corruption-related offences’ with register No. 13271-2 dated 26 May 2025.
