Draft law (No.2520a) offers to supplement Article 25 (Publicity) of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine with Item 2 reading that "People's deputy of Ukraine has the right following the procedure established by the legislation to address an appeal (petition) to the agencies and officials executing functions of inquiry and pre-trial investigation, exclusively to obtain information concerning specific criminal cases, save for those having relation to him personally, his relatives, people in his direct supervision or contain other private interest" and Item 3 concerning the meaning of “the term ‘private interest’ is used in the meaning contained in the Law of Ukraine "On corruption prevention."
Also, it offers to amend Section 1 of Article 221 (Review of materials of pre-trial investigation before its completion) of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine, and to Section 10 of Article 290 (Disclosing materials to the other party) of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine, according to which people’s deputies of Ukraine are granted with the right of access to materials of criminal proceedings in order to obtain information, including on the course of the pre-trial investigation.
The Committee members believe that the proposed provisions of the draft law contradict the Constitution of Ukraine.
Thus, according to Section 4 of Article 76 of the Constitution of Ukraine, authorities of people’s deputies of Ukraine are defined by the Constitution and laws of Ukraine. One of the authorities of people’s deputies of Ukraine is the right to address an inquiry, established in Section 1 of Article 86 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
According to Article 16 of the Law of Ukraine "On the status of people’s deputy of Ukraine" people’s deputy of Ukraine has the right to address an inquiry concerning the issues connected with deputy activities to state government and local self-government bodies, their officials and heads of enterprises, institutions and organizations irrespective of forms of ownership and subordination, and associations of citizens. The right to address an inquiry is one of the authorities of people's deputies of Ukraine. The Law does not envisage providing information on certain criminal proceedings on the basis of a deputy's inquiry or appeal.
It should be noted that the Constitution of Ukraine and the Law of Ukraine "On the status of people’s deputy of Ukraine" contain a complete list of authorities of people’s deputy and does not provide for familiarization with the materials of criminal proceedings.
At that, the text of the draft law has no provisions determining the volume of information that can be provided in reply to people’s deputy of Ukraine’s inquiry.
In addition, the draft law provides for making amendments to exclusively Articles 25, 27, 221 and 290 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine, which regulate the procedure and consequences of obtaining information with regard to certain criminal proceedings. However, the author of the draft law has not amended Chapter 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine, although the provisions of this Chapter regulate issues connected with this status, rights and duties of the court, the parties and other participants in criminal proceedings. It should be noted that people’s deputy of Ukraine does not belong to the category of "other participants in criminal proceedings."
Thus, the above draft law can lead to abuse of power and ungrounded disclosure of confidential information of pre-trial investigation by people’s deputies of Ukraine.
Considering the above and in order to eliminate corruptiogenic factor it is advisable to reject the draft law.