“Certain provisions proposed by Draft Law No. 12439 are not about protecting business, they are about inequality for the ESBU,” – Director of the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine, Oleksandr Tsyvinskyi

 The Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine does not support certain provisions of Draft Law No. 12439, which is allegedly intended to improve guarantees for the protection of business during criminal proceedings. This was stated by ESBU`s Director Oleksandr Tsyvinskyi at the 10th International Business Protection Forum, organized by the publishing house «Yurydychna Praktyka».

In particular, the proposed changes to Article 214 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine provide that information on criminal offenses in the field of economic activity shall be entered into the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations (URPI) exclusively by the head of the prosecutor’s office.

“I do not agree with this provision, since it means inequality for the ESBU. In fact, it concerns our entire investigative jurisdiction, which covers almost 30 articles. This means that, if the law is adopted, the ESBU detective will no longer be able to independently enter information on a criminal offense into the URPI and initiate the start of a pre-trial investigation.

If we really want to change the approach to registering criminal offenses, these changes must apply to all bodies, and not only to the ESBU. In my view, each body must independently enter cases within its investigative jurisdiction, while the issue of entering information with signs of offenses under non-investigative articles into the URPI should be resolved by the prosecutor. I spoke about this at the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Law Enforcement and at the coordination meeting,” Tsyvinskyi said during his speech.

He also added that the provisions of the mentioned Draft Law concerning the prohibition of urgent searches without a ruling of the investigating judge, as well as provisions that in fact replace court decisions with arbitrary “explanations” of regulatory bodies, are no less dangerous.

“If we want to tolerate bribery, then this is an excellent amendment,” - emphasized Oleksandr Tsyvinskyi, commenting on the provision regarding the prohibition of urgent searches. “A bribe-taker can take money in any place not specified by the investigator. And the only tool in such a case is precisely the urgent search. Depriving detectives of this option will significantly affect the effectiveness of investigations, first of all in corruption cases.”

In addition, according to the Director of the ESBU, another dangerous novelty is Article 41-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, “Compliance with official positions of state authorities.” It provides that explanations of authorized bodies become not only evidence of good faith in court, but also an automatic “alibi” that blocks the very initiation of criminal proceedings.

Such explanations may be obtained regarding tax and customs legislation and public procurement. This will not only create unequal conditions for business, but also increase corruption risks.

It should be noted that earlier NABU and SAP stated that the mentioned changes do not comply with the Constitution and the principle of equality before the law, and called on people`s deputies to refrain from voting.