The Constitutional Court of Ukraine proceeded to the in-camera part of the plenary session in the case concerning the constitutionality of specific provisions of laws and codes of Ukraine
On October 20, the Grand Chamber of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine at its public part of the plenary session in the form of written proceedings considered the case upon the constitutional petition of 47 People’s Deputies of Ukraine concerning the compliance of specific provisions of the laws of Ukraine “On Prevention of Corruption”, “On Prosecutor's Office”, “On National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine”, “On the State Bureau of Investigation”, “On National Agency of Ukraine for finding, tracing and management of assets derived from corruption and other crimes”, the Criminal Code of Ukraine, the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine with the Constitution of Ukraine.
At the beginning of the hearing, the Сourt considered the motions of the Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Fedir Venislavskyi to recuse judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Oleksandr Tupytskyi, Ihor Slidenko and Volodymyr Moisyk. Following consideration of these motions, the Court refused to uphold them.
The Court also considered the motion of the Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Fedir Venislavskyi and the Permanent Representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Olha Sovhyria to postpone the hearing. Following the consideration of these motions, the Court refused to uphold them.
Fedir Venislavskyi's motion to continue the case in the form of oral proceedings will be considered during the in-camera part of the plenary session.
In addition, motions on recusal of the judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Ihor Slidenko and Oleksandr Tupytskyi, as well as the postponement of the consideration of the case, were received from the participants involved in the constitutional proceedings, but who are not empowered to file relevant motions. The Court therefore dismissed them.
The Сourt heard the information of the Judge-Rapporteur in the case, Ihor Slidenko, who set out the content of the constitutional petition and the grounds for initiating constitutional proceedings in the case.
The Judge-Rapporteur stated that the People’s Deputies of Ukraine request the Court to declare them inconsistent with the Constitution of Ukraine, in particular:
specific provisions of the Law of Ukraine “On Prevention of Corruption”, which relate to issues of declaration, specific powers of the NAPC in terms of access to declarations and their verification, as well as monitoring the lifestyle of the subjects of the declaration;
Articles 366¹, 368⁵ of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, concerning liability for declaring inaccurate information and illicit enrichment;
specific provisions of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine concerning to the peculiarities of court proceedings in cases of recognition of unfounded assets and their recovery into state revenue;
specific provisions of the Law of Ukraine “On the Prosecutor's Office” concerning the representation of interests in courts in cases of recognition of unjustified assets and their recovery into state revenue;
specific provisions of the Law of Ukraine “On the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine” regarding the powers of NABU in the aspect of taking measures to identify unjustified assets and collect evidence of their unfoundedness;
specific provisions of the Law of Ukraine “On the State Bureau of Investigation” regarding the powers of the SBI in terms of taking measures to identify unjustified assets and collect evidence of their unfoundedness;
specific provisions of the Law of Ukraine “On National Agency of Ukraine for finding, tracing and management of assets derived from corruption and other crimes” concerning to the peculiarities of the agency's activities in recognising unjustified assets and their recovery into state revenue.
The petitioners believe that the disputed provisions of the laws and codes of Ukraine do not comply with a number of articles of the Basic Law of Ukraine.
Ihor Slidenko also noted that in connection with the need for a comprehensive study of the case, requests to receive academic and expert position on issues raised in the constitutional petition were sent to specialists of Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University, National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”, National Odessa Law Academy, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, as well as to the Head of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption.
The case file contains information of the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption, opinions of the Legal Department of the Secretariat of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and the Institute of Law of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, scientific and expert position of the Yaroslav the Wise National Law University, research of the Anti-Corruption Research and Education Centre of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, opinion of the Professor of the Department of Criminal and Criminal Procedure Law of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Doctor of Law, Professor Mykola Khavroniuk, position of the Prosecutor General's Office, National Agency of Ukraine for finding, tracing and management of assets derived from corruption and other crimes, explanations in the case of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court, the NGO “Anticorruption Action Center”, the position of the public organization Transparency International Ukraine.
After considering the case files at public part of the court hearing, the Court proceeded to the in-camera part of the plenary session for a decision.
The Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Oleksandr Tupytskyi chaired the plenary session.
The plenary session was attended by a participant in the constitutional proceedings - a representative of the subject of the right to constitutional petition, the People's Deputy of Ukraine Hryhorii Mamka.
The public part of the plenary session is available on the official website of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine at the link: http://ccu.gov.ua/kategoriya/2020.
