Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has submitted to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, a draft law (No. 10358 of June 3, 2019) on the confiscation of illegal assets of officials and resumption of liability for illegal enrichment.
According to the press service of the head of state, the document was developed together with national and foreign experts. It introduces a new mechanism for confiscating illegal assets of officials – by a court decision in civil order without a conviction, and returns an article of the Criminal Code for illegal enrichment, which the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional in February 2019.
“Civil confiscation is allowed by EU directive 2014/42/EU and is used in the UK, US, Australia, Canada, Switzerland and other countries,” the report says.
It is noted that the anti-corruption authorities cannot investigate the production of illegal enrichment due to the recognition of this article of the Criminal Code of Ukraine unconstitutional. However, in the case of identifying unjustified assets in the amount over UAH 900,000, liability cannot be avoided by both top officials, who were illegally enriched earlier and those, who decide to do this in the future.
Thus, previous cases related to illegal enrichment can be used by anti-corruption bodies for claims for collecting illegally acquired assets to the state.
It is emphasized that all these assets will be levied on the state’s income in a civil manner on the National Anti-Corruption Bureau claims, agreed with the prosecutors of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.
As The Journalist reported, Zelensky will submit to Parliament bill on restoration of liability for illegal enrichment.
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