The Center for Civil Liberties calls on the President of Ukraine to veto Draft Law No. 12414

The Center for Civil Liberties calls on the President of Ukraine to veto draft law No. 12414, which was adopted by Parliament today, July 22, in violation of parliamentary procedure. The draft law poses a direct threat to the rule of law and human rights.

We also appeal to European institutions to persuade the Ukrainian authorities to revoke draft law No. 12414, as it contradicts the founding principles of the European Union.

This draft law eliminates the procedural independence of prosecutors. In fact, the Prosecutor General is now granted the power to change the jurisdiction of any case in Ukraine, depriving all other law enforcement bodies of their independence. They can decide whether or not to investigate a case, transfer an investigation to another body, assign a case to other investigators, require that all charges against top officials be signed exclusively by them, and also direct the course of investigations and issue binding instructions to any investigators.

According to Ukrainian legislation, the Prosecutor General has no guarantees of independence and is entirely politically dependent on the President’s Office. Thus, these changes directly threaten the rule of law and respect for human rights.

Most significantly, these changes dismantle the system of anti-corruption bodies, particularly the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). After these changes, investigating any criminal cases against the top political leadership in Ukraine will become virtually impossible. In essence, these bodies lose their reason for existence in this form, as they will no longer differ in any way from other law enforcement agencies. Therefore, this destroys the anti-corruption system laboriously built over the past 10 years.