People's Deputies of Ukraine registered the Draft Law No. 12374-1
On 8 January 2025, the People's Deputies of Ukraine O.M. Tkachenko, A.K. Slavytska and V.O. Sterniychuk registered the Draft Law No. 12374-1 ‘On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On the National Agency of Ukraine for Finding, Tracing and Management of Assets Derived from Corruption and Other Crimes” regarding guarantees of independence and strengthening of institutional capacity.
The draft law is an alternative to the draft law No. 12374, which we have already analysed earlier. The alternative draft law No. 12374-1 is aimed at improving the legal regulation of the National Agency for Asset Recovery and Management (ARMA). The main provisions relate to guarantees of the agency's independence, the procedure for selecting its head, external evaluation of its activities, management of seized assets, and the role of public control.
Unlike the draft law No. 12374, the draft law No. 12374-1 covers a wider range of issues related to the management of certain types of assets (cultural property and sanatorium complexes, sanctioned assets), financial support for ARMA's activities, as well as the search for sources for such support.
The ILI experts analysed the provisions of the draft law and drew attention to the following comments to the draft law
- Partial fulfilment of the Ukraine Facility's requirement to transfer assets into management.
- Excessive discretion in assessing the candidate's compliance with the criteria of integrity and professional competence.
- Discretionary influence of the Head of ARMA on the early termination of powers of members of the competition commission for the selection of ARMA employees.
- Unclear definition of certain guarantees of ARMA's independence.
- Unbalanced approach to the formation of competition commissions for the selection of ARMA employees.
- Funding of ARMA through proceeds from the sale of assets.
- Removal of Article 21(7) of the ARMA Law / Article 21-1(7) of the ARMA Law.
- Transfer of powers to sell seized assets to ARMA.
More details on the identified comments here