HOT ANTICORRUPTION NEWS / Issue #105
June 8, 2019
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Today's issue:
- the Constitutional Court deprived NABU of powers to invalidate civil agreements in courts;
- President Zelensky submitted a draft law on illicit enrichment and civil forfeiture to the Rada;
- #AvakOFF: activists demand dismissal of the Interior Ministry following drunk shooting of two police officers who killed a 5-year-old child;
- first verdicts in Handziuk's case: the performers got from 3 to 6 years in jail;
- recommended reading
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The Constitutional Court deprived NABU of powers to invalidate civil agreements in courts
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On June 6, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine ruled unconstitutional NABU authority to file lawsuits in order to invalidate civil agreements which contain violations detected during the investigation. Using this tool NABU already seized around 7 billion UAH. Now unfair companies may return some of this money back through the courts. The decision was passed following an appeal filed by Kolomoisky's plant.
We consider it to be groundless. See our detailed analysis.
We alerted about this and other time bombs against the reforms in April.
On the same day the Constitutional Court also abolished e-declarations for anticorruption activists.
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President Zelensky submitted a draft law on illicit enrichment and civil forfeiture to the Rada
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The draft law No10358 foresees new wording of the illicit enrichment article in the Criminal Code. It also offers the introduction of the civil forfeiture - confiscation of unjustified assets of public officials within the civil trial, without a guilty verdict.
The officials would be brought to criminal liability if the value of their unjustified assets exceeds around $425,000. The trials on civil forfeiture will be held in the High Anticorruption Court.
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On June 5 the Rada Committee on law enforcement recommended the Parliament to include the draft law in the agenda. On June 6 the Rada failed to do it.
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#AvakOFF: activists demand dismissal of the Interior Ministry following drunk shooting of two police officers who killed a 5-year-old child
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On May 31, two drunk police officers shot 5-year-old Kyrylo in Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi of Kyiv region. As Hromadske reported, the boy was delivered to the retinal unit of the central regional hospital on May 31 with a closed craniocerebral injury, brain contusion, intracerebral hematoma, and a fracture of the temporal bone.
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In the hospital, the child was found to be wounded by a bullet and subsequently rushed to a medical institution in Kyiv. First police reported that the boy fell down and broke his head while playing with other kids, but after the doctors found a bullet in his head, their rhetorics changed.
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On June 3 the kid died and this caused an outcry in the society. Rallies in 10 cities and towns took place.
Activists demanded: Avakov's resignation; requalification of the crime; arrests of the suspects; and bringing to liability police officers who documented that the child fell down and hit his head.
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Lawyer Roman Maselko informed that one of the officers, who killed the kid - Volodymyr Petrovets, did not pass the police re-attestation (got 44 scores of minimum 50) and was fired. However, in January 2018 judge Kostenko of scandalous Kyiv District Administrative Court reinstated him at the post. On June 3, judge Kostenko successfully passed judicial qualification assessment at the High Qualification Commission of Judges, which overruled the negative opinion of the Public Integrity Council regarding Kostenko.
In total, the Kyiv District Administrative court reinstated 285 police officers, which were fired in the course of the reform.
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First verdicts in Handziuk's case: the performers got from 3 to 6 years in jail
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"Who is behind the murder of Handziuk" initiative:
10 months passed after Kateryna was attacked with acid. 7 months - after she died in enormous pain.
On June 7, after a long investigation, pushed forward only by the activists and journalists, who did not allow to jail an innocent person, the first verdicts were passed for the performers of the terrible crime (on the photo).
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All of them got from 3 to 6,5 years in prison. Such weak verdicts are caused by the plea deals, concluded by the performers with the prosecution. Without their testimonies, it would be impossible to bring to liability the organizers and instigators of the crime.
The next step should be the announcement of notices of suspicion to the instigators. None of them - Manger, Gordieiev or Ryshchuk, is imprisoned.
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