The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, has passed draft law No. 2541a on amending the Criminal and Civil Codes of Ukraine to improve special confiscation institutions to remove the risk of corruption at second reading.
A total of 227 lawmakers voted in favor of the bill.
The draft law is included in the so-called “visa liberalization” package, a list of draft laws which must be adopted for a visa free regime to be in effect between Ukraine and the European Union.
According to the document, special confiscation applies to money and valuables held in bank accounts or stored at banks and other financial institutions, and other assets transferred to a third party by a criminal free of charge or in exchange to a sum which is lower than their market value.
Circumstances regarding the third party are to be established in court on the basis of sufficient proof. The law states that special confiscation cannot be applied to any assets owned by the buyer.
Head of the parliamentary committee for the legal provision of law enforcement actions Andriy Kozhemiakin said that the government had proposed that the special confiscation institution should be expanded, however, after analyzing the clauses of EU directives on freezing of income received via crime, the committee came to the conclusion that there are no requirements on special confiscation for all types of crimes.
“It can be applied to some crimes concerning crimes of corruption, crimes linked to money laundering, terrorism, crimes concerning illegal drug turnover,” he said.
