News (#04 April 2016)

Draft

Criminal responsibility for circumvention of objective cases distribution

Draft Act No.4203 On Amendments to the Criminal Code regarding Introduction of the Criminal Responsibility for the Actual Circumvention of the Objective and Impartial Distribution of Cases by the Court Automation Case Flow Management System has been registered in Parliament. It is proposed to amend Article 376.1 of the Criminal Code with the corresponding provision. Sanctions related to the actual circumvention of the objective and impartial distribution of cases by the court automation case flow management system include penalties of 600 to 1000 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens or from 2 to 5 years of personal restraint, or 3 years imprisonment, along with deprivation of the right to occupy certain positions or engage in certain activities from 1 to 3 years.   

Financial Police to be established in Ukraine

Draft Act No.4228 On the Financial Police, according to which it is planned to establish the Financial Police to deal with economic crimes and replace the Tax Police, was registered on 15 March in Parliament.

The Draft Act aims to separate the service and the law-enforcement functions of the Fiscal Service, liquidate the Tax Police, optimize the structure and number of bodies dealing with financial crimes, eliminate any overlapping in their functions and establish the financial police.

This new body will be subordinated to the Cabinet of Ministers with its activities coordinated by the Ministry of Finance. The financial police will be responsible for the prevention, identification, suppression, investigation, and solution of crimes committed when forming and using national financial resources as well as in terms of economic security. The detectives working for the Financial Police will carry out investigations and will have the power to enlist foreign experts and recruit other people for the purposes of investigation.      

This Draft also sets the staff quota when establishing the financial police, namely, former officers of the tax police, departments on combating economic crimes which are the part of the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, departments of counterintelligence protection of national economic security interests, Security Service of Ukraine make up no more than 25%, individuals who held positions as investigators or agents in other government authorities make up no more than 5% and other individuals make up at least 70% of the new agency.

 

Introduction of criminal infractions

The Committee on Legislative Support of Law Enforcement has considered Draft Act No.2897 and recommended the Draft On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts Regarding Introduction of Criminal Infractions to be adopted in the first reading by the Verkhovna Rada.

The Draft aims to implement state policy on the humanization of criminal responsibility resulting in a significant reduction in the number of both convicted and imprisoned individuals.

The Draft suggests introducing the notion of “criminal offences” into the Criminal Code encompassing all criminally-punishable acts, which are sub-divided into crimes and criminal infractions and described in the particular volumes of the Special Part of the Criminal Code. The Act also provides for supplementing the Criminal Code with Annex 2, “Terms and Definitions”, which contains 75 terms used in the Code.

A number of actions classified as administrative offences and found in the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences and the Customs Code become the subject matter of the Criminal Code by receiving the status of criminal infractions.  Certain types of misdemeanors are also suggested to be subsumed into criminal infractions.

 

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