Why is it necessary to resume monitoring the lifestyle of public servants?

One of the achievements of the rebooted National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) in 2020 was the launch of lifestyle monitoring of the declarants. Within a few months, NACP began monitoring the lifestyle of 47 public servants and submitted 7 materials for full verification of declarations. However, in view of the Decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine No. 13-r/2020, the NACP no longer has the right to monitor the lifestyle. We emphasize that lifestyle monitoring is not an investigative measure, and therefore it does not involve excessive interference in the exercise of the right to privacy and family life. What is lifestyle monitoring? Article 51 of the Law of Ukraine on Prevention of Corruption authorized the NACP to conduct selective lifestyle monitoring of declarants. Such monitoring was initiated on the basis of information received from individuals or published in the media and other open sources relating to the inconsistency between the declarants’ lifestyle and their assets and income. During the monitoring, the Agency’s experts checked the following information:

• use of objects not specified in the declaration (for example, cars and houses);
• information about received gifts;
• acquisition of objects, the value of which exceeds the declared assets.

According to the Law, if the NACP established a discrepancy between the official’s lifestyle and his/her declared property and income, this was the basis for conducting full verification of his/her declaration. In the case of detecting a corruption offense, the Agency reported it to law enforcement agencies and other authorized agencies. Why is lifestyle monitoring necessary? Lifestyle monitoring is necessary for ensuring that declarants are honest not only on paper. Thus, journalistic investigations, posts on social networks, reports from individuals, allow to find discrepancies between the “declared” and actual lifestyle of officials. For example, journalists reported that the head of one of the National Police departments did not indicate assets of his declared family members. Also, through the media, the NACP paid attention to the deputy of the Rayon Council, who declared an apartment in Kyiv one year, but did not do so the next. Although he did not take any action with real estate. Without lifestyle monitoring, public servants will, with impunity, continue to:

• make expenditures that exceed their declared income;
• regularly drive “other people’s” cars, without mentioning them in declarations;
• fly private planes at the expense of unknown sources;
• spend about half of the annual official earnings on a week-long vacation abroad;
• live in a house of a civilian wife, without indicating in the declaration either her or her assets.

We believe that legislators will find legal ways to address this situation. That is why we continue to work on initiatives that will help increase the effectiveness of preventing and combating corruption in Ukraine after the full renewal of the NACP’s powers.