The solution to restoring the anticorruption infrastructure from Dmytro Razumkov. Why it will not work.

Yesterday, the speaker of the Parliament Dmytro Razumkov introduced bill #4304 in the Parliament to restore the anticorruption infrastructure of Ukraine. 

The bill was supported by many MPs from different factions including “Sluha Narodu”, “European solidarity”, “Batkivschyna”, “Holos” and MP groups “Dovira” and “For the Future”. 

However, the bill consists only of one provision, which in general, envisages “to restore everything as it was before the decision of the Constitutional Court (CC).” 

Why is it legally ignorant?  
Once the decision of the CC was adopted, some provision of the Law of Ukraine “On prevention of corruption” and the provision of the Criminal Code on the criminal liability for providing false information in asset declaration were cancelled. 

The legislative procedures do not allow to restore provisions, which do not exist. Therefore, the only way is to draft new provisions instead of the cancelled ones. 

Just imagine that you had a favourite book and some of its pages burnt. You cannot restore them with a magic wand. You can either buy a new book or glue the pages instead of the burnt ones. The situation with cancelled provisions is the same. 

What threats brings such a decision? 
At some point, this law, if adopted, will be reviewed by the CC and even trustworthy judges will have to rule that it is not constitutional. 

Another consequence of this legally ignorant law is that public officials would be able to refuse to enforce “the restored” provisions of the law. They easily could prove their position in the court and will not bear any liability. 

Therefore, we call on to prepare the grounded and legally acceptable bill.