After a series of journalistic investigations into the dubious origin of Deputy Minister of Justice Andriy Haichenko's property registered to his relatives, the question arose whether the NACP would be able to initiate the confiscation of these assets if their illegality was confirmed.
Kateryna Butko, Head of the Public Council at the NACP, spoke to UNN about the mechanics of the NACP's work in cases where there are doubts about the unjustified assets of a public official or if the declared assets of an official or his or her relatives exceed their official income:
"In practice, it works like this: The NACP conducts lifestyle monitoring or a full verification of the declaration, sees the property for which there are questions about whether the person has enough money for it. The NACP evaluates this, asks questions of the declarant, asks where the money for this property came from. The declarant provides an explanation. It also checks whether close relatives could have had and helped with the purchase of this property.
If it is decided that no, there are no close relatives who could help with the purchase of this property, if the declarant does not have the funds for this property and does not have adequate explanations of where the funds for this property came from, then the NACP sends all this to the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office.
The SAPO, for its part, checks and reviews all the materials provided by the NACP, checks through its capabilities and databases. If they agree that, yes, it was not possible to acquire this property and there are no funds to acquire this property, and in normal amounts (it is important to note that the SAPO may disagree and believe that there is not enough evidence to show that this property was acquired illegally), the SAPO files a lawsuit with the High Anti-Corruption Court for civil forfeiture, and they already prove in court that there were no funds to acquire this property.
If the court is satisfied with this evidence and agrees with the Prosecutor's Office, then the property is confiscated. A person can appeal this to the Appeals Chamber. If the Appeals Chamber says that no, there were no funds to purchase the property, then it is finally confiscated.
It should be noted that similar precedents already exist. In particular, the HACC previously confiscated the assets of a number of officials if they could not explain the source of funds for the purchase of expensive property.
That is, if the NACP can prove the dubious origin of the funds used to purchase land plots, apartments and houses by Haichenko's family, similar to other cases, the court may decide to specially confiscate the property in favor of the state.
Therefore, the key role in this case will be played by the evidence collected by the NACP and NABU, as well as whether the Ministry of Justice is ready to facilitate a transparent investigation of its deputy.