The normative act, which came into force on March 30, 2017, introduces a number of amendments to the Law of Ukraine dated October 14, 2014 No. 1700-VII "On the Prevention of Corruption", which establishes the obligation of officials to annually submit information on their income and property in electronic form.
In particular, the Law exempts from the obligation to declare most of the military personnel, including conscripted servicemen, servicemen called up under mobilization, servicemen performing military service under contract, ordinary, sergeant, petty officer and junior officers, as well as cadets of military educational institutions.
At the same time, the Law provides for the expansion of the list of persons subject to the Law "On the Prevention of Corruption". Declarations of income and property will now also have to be submitted by:
- candidates for elected office - for the post of president, for the post of heads and headmen of municipalities, candidates for people's deputies and candidates for deputies of municipalities;
- Persons who are members of the supervisory board of a State bank, State enterprise or State organization with the purpose of making profit;
- representatives of public councils, public control councils established under state bodies and involved in the preparation of decisions on personnel issues, preparation, monitoring and evaluation of anti-corruption programs.
In addition, the Law obliges to submit annual declarations:
- Individuals carrying out activities at the expense of state anti-corruption programs/projects;
- individuals performing work and rendering services in the field of prevention and combating corruption, including implementation of anti-corruption standards and monitoring of anti-corruption policy;
- heads and members of governing bodies of public associations and other non-governmental organizations engaged in preventing and combating corruption, including those participating in related activities.
According to Ukrainian lawmakers, the amendments to the Law on the Prevention of Corruption are aimed at increasing transparency and public accountability of structures involved in anti-corruption activities and are based on foreign experience.
It should be noted that in some countries there is indeed a practice of obliging members of non-governmental organizations to provide information on their income, such as in India, where according to the Law on the Ombudsman for Anti-Corruption (The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013), the heads of partially or fully state-funded organizations and organizations receiving foreign funding are classified as public officials and are required to submit asset declarations. In Latvia, the Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest in Public Service (Par interešu konflikta novēršanu valsts amatpersonu darbībā), representatives of public organizations may be obliged to submit information on income if such organizations have been entrusted with certain public functions.
At the same time, the wording proposed by the Law of Ukraine No. 1975-VIII is extremely ambiguous and gives wide possibilities for their interpretation. The new provisions of the Ukrainian legislation may actually cover not only members of public and other non-governmental anti-corruption organizations, but also their sponsors, counterparties, journalists engaged in independent investigations, as well as potentially any activists participating in anti-corruption activities. This circumstance creates the possibility to use the new provisions of the law as a basis for the interpretation of anti-corruption legislation.
The adopted amendments to the anti-corruption legislation have already provoked a wave of criticism from the public and experts. For example, the international non-governmental organization Transparency International expressed the need to cancel the amendments regarding the obligation to provide income information for anti-corruption public organizations and activists, interpreting them as an attempt to intimidate civil society and as evidence of the authorities' non-serious attitude to the fight against corruption. European Union Commissioner for Enlargement and Policy