The Verkhovna Rada is considering the draft law No. 6220 “On amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine on entering information to the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations and the grounds for terminating criminal proceedings.”

The draft laws proposes that before the information about the pending resolution on terminating criminal proceedings is entered to the register of criminal offenses, it shall be checked in the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations in accordance with the special procedure.

The experts of the RPR group on the law enforcement reform warn that if this draft law is adopted, the investigation of the cases against the former state leaders (Yanukovych and his supporters) will be blocked. This will also seriously impede anticorruption investigations led by NABU and the SAP and will result in massive violation of the rights of the offended parties.

In particular:

1. All the cases terminated without any cause during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych will not be completed, submitted to court, or considered. After all, the cases on “the alienation of Mezhyhiria” and “the crimes against the participants of the Revolution of Dignity” were first terminated in the specified period, and then new proceedings have been re-instituted.
2. A so-called “procedural sabotage” might become popular: to stop the pre-trial investigation conducted by NABU detectives, dummy petitioners will appeal to the local prosecutor’s offices and district police departments that will terminate criminal proceedings on the basis of corrupt arrangements.
3. The general principle of automatic commencement of pre-trial investigation, introduced by the CCP in 2012, will be violated. Instead of automatically entering the information, the investigator/prosecutor will check for the pending resolutions on similar facts. Obviously, it is almost impossible to check whether the closed resolution pertains to the very fact addressed by the petitioner before the information is entered to the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations. Introduction of this regulation will prolong the time of response to criminal offenses. There will also appear a legitimate reason to decline the request of the offended party or the petitioner to register a criminal proceeding.

Taking this into consideration, the experts of the RPR group on the law enforcement reform call on the Verkhovna Rada to reject the draft law No. 6220 “On amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine on entering information to the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations and the grounds for terminating criminal proceedings.”