NABU is doing the wrong thing - MP on land deals in the country

There are many land plots in Ukraine that raise questions about the legality of their distribution and use. But for some reason, the NABU is not dealing with them, instead wanting to seize the land of ATO participants, which they received legally. This opinion was voiced by Mykhailo Tsymbalyuk, MP, First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Social Policy and Veterans' Rights, in an exclusive commentary to UNN.

In particular, the MP noted that, of course, such issues need to be dealt with on the merits. However, the attempt to seize land plots that ATO participants received on the basis of free privatization raises questions, at least from a moral point of view. Moreover, the NABU should have questions to the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences, which claims these lands.

We need to know the case file to speak from a legal point of view. From a moral point of view, it is certainly unfair. If the ATO participants legitimately received this land, then they will be victims in this case. If officials who committed a crime were really involved, that's one story. I think that we have many other lands that should be the subject of law enforcement agencies' consideration today: those that are distributed without any grounds, those that are used without any grounds - including by the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences. In this case, there is no need to confuse where the ATO participants are. Moreover, if they received (the land plots - ed.) legally, it is already their property. And how to seize this property now is the question

The MP added that with this possible arrest, NABU will set a bad precedent for people who are fighting today and will have the right to receive land when they return in the future. After all, people will be wary of the possibility of exercising this right.

Context 

We are talking about land plots that were privatized in 2017-18 for free to more than a thousand ATO participants. The NABU and the SAPO believe that these lands were used by the National Agrarian Academy (NAAS) when the soldiers privatized them. However, the anti-corruption activists' version contradicts the decision of the Supreme Court, which ruled that the NAAS did not have any official documents of land use rights. 

During the consideration of the case, the courts of previous instances found that there were no state acts for the right to permanent use of land plots by SE Iskra, SE Nadiia and the companies whose legal successors they are.

Despite this, SAPO prosecutor Anastasia Andronova said during a meeting of the HACCU Appeals Chamber that the land plots are planned to be seized in the near future. 

Those (lands - ed.) that were transferred to the ownership of ATO participants and other persons - we actually had a pre-trial investigation going on, and we decided that it would be more appropriate to do so when we have more complete evidence. In March of this year, we received a number of expert examinations, which are actually attached to the petition materials, which, in our opinion, substantiate the suspicion, and we will soon decide on further measures

Most of all this situation outrages the ATO soldiers themselves, most of whom are now at the front, defending the country at the cost of their own lives. They claim that the land was legally registered. Currently, they are leased out, and the soldiers receive money for it. In response to the threats of the NABU and SAPO to seize their land, they answer: "let them come to the frontline".