The Verkhovna Rada Committee on Law Enforcement recommended to consider the main and 3 alternative draft laws that would repeal the Lozovyi amendments and to adopt one of them “at the discretion of the hall”.
This was reported by MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak, UNN reports.
Details
The intrigue is even greater with the bills to repeal the Lozovyi amendments. The Committee has just made a very unusual decision. It recommended all 4 draft laws “at the discretion of the hall”. That is, today they will vote for each one in turn. 12 votes in total, if one of them fails. It looks like a path to failure
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“Lozovyi's amendments stipulate that any case can be closed if the court finds that investigators or detectives had been investigating for a longer period of time before serving suspicion on specific individuals.
In 2023, the parliament passed draft law No. 10060 on the independence of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO), but only with a “very partial” repeal of some provisions of the Lozovyi amendments.
In December 2024, the Cabinet of Ministers introduced a draft law that would eliminate the provision that criminal proceedings are closed if the pre-trial investigation period has expired after a person has been notified of suspicion, except in the case of notifying a person of suspicion of committing a serious or especially serious crime against a person's life and health.
Subsequently, 3 more alternative draft laws were submitted to the Verkhovna Rada. In particular, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Prosecutor's Office supported draft law No. 12367-3, which aims to improve the effectiveness of pre-trial investigation and ensure the inevitability of punishment for corruption offenses.
The NABU points out that the draft law provides for important changes to the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, in particular:
abolishes the provision on closing criminal proceedings due to the expiration of the pre-trial investigation, which will make it impossible for persons to avoid liability due to formal deadlines, even in cases where they have been notified of suspicion.
This is especially important for investigating serious and especially serious crimes; it allows the head of the SAPO to extend the pre-trial investigation without the need to appeal to the investigating judge, which makes it impossible to automatically close the proceedings due to the formal expiration of the investigation period;
gives the SAPO the right to create joint investigative teams in NABU cases, which will allow for faster disclosure of complex corruption schemes committed in different jurisdictions;
regulates the issue of extradition in corruption crimes: requests for extradition of persons suspected in NABU criminal proceedings will now be submitted by both the Prosecutor General and the head of the SAPO.
This will speed up the process of returning individuals to Ukraine to bring them to justice.
Recall
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has submitted to the Verkhovna Rada a draft law establishing liability for violation of special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions).