President Petro Poroshenko on March 27 signed into law amendments that require anti-corruption non-governmental organizations, investigative journalists and potentially any anti-corruption protesters to file publicly accessible electronic asset declarations.
The legislation is seen as an effort by the authorities to crack down on anti-corruption activists and independent media. It has triggered a backlash from civil society, with some comparing it to the dictatorial Russian law branding nongovernmental organizations as “foreign agents.”
Experts from the Reanimation Package of Reforms even argue that the signing of the law would imply the re-introduction of authoritarianism in Ukraine.
Meeting with activists
Poroshenko met with civil society groups on March 27 to discuss the amendments and said he supported the requirement for anti-corruption NGOs and activists to file declarations, though he said such declarations should be different from those of officials, Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, said on Facebook.
But Poroshenko said he was ready to remove the clause requiring all organizations cooperating with and getting funds from NGOs to file declarations after he signs the law, Shabunin added.
Poroshenko argued that he needed to sign the amendments immediately because they exempt rank-and-file servicemen from filing declarations by April 1. He said he had agreed to create a working group to possibly amend some clauses of the amendments.
Deception?
Civic activists interviewed by the Kyiv Post saw this as a ruse and deception by Poroshenko.
“The resolution of this issue will continue forever, which means that the current version will be in force,” Shabunin said.
Oleksandr Lemenov, an expert at the Reanimation Package of Reforms, argued that Poroshenko would get his way and severely restrict NGOs despite the working group’s creation.
“This will be stupid primitive horse-trading, and they’ll try to bring us down to their level and defeat us due to their experience,” he said.
Reformist lawmaker Sergii Leshchenko argued that Poroshenko first forced his loyal lawmakers to vote for the amendments cracking down on NGOs and journalists and then pretended that it wasn’t his initiative.
“Poroshenko is trying to make fools out of the whole nation,” Leshchenko said on Facebook.
The law requires anyone who “takes part in measures linked to anti-corruption efforts” to file electronic declarations.
Potentially this clause can apply to any anti-corruption NGOs, any journalists who write about corruption and any protesters against corruption at opposition rallies, Mykhailo Zhernakov, an expert at the Reanimation Package of Reforms, said in his blog on March 26.
“For the first time since the (2013-2014) EuroMaidan Revolution, the authorities have openly declared war on civil society by adopting the law on electronic declarations for NGOs,” Zhernakov said. “… (The amendments) de facto renew authoritarianism in Ukraine and transform Ukraine into a police state similar to our northern neighbors (Russia).”
Zhernakov argued that “the EuroMaidan was also a ‘measure linked to anti-corruption efforts.”
“Now, three years after the EuroMaidan Revolution, the Verkhovna Rada has effectively outlawed the EuroMaidan and has declared us to be criminals if we don’t file electronic declarations,” he said.
The amendments will block NGOs’ work and apply even to third parties cooperating with and getting money from NGOs, including lessees, suppliers and printers, according to Shabunin.
Corruption loopholes
Apart from cracking down on anti-corruption activists and journalists, the amendments also provide loopholes for state officials’ corruption.
Yegor Sobolev, chairman of parliament’s anti-corruption committee, said on March 23 that the amendments had a loophole allowing top corrupt officials to avoid filing declarations by getting war participant status
The amendments may also damage Ukraine’s anti-corruption efforts by exempting members and chairpeople of city and village councils from submitting declarations, said Oksana Syroid, a deputy speaker of the Verkhovna Rada.
The amendments have also been criticized as allegedly unconstitutional and self-contradictory. They stipulate two conflicting deadlines for anti-corruption activists’ declarations – April 1, 2017 and April 1, 2018.
The amendment on NGOs was introduced by lawmaker Tetiana Chornovol of the People’s Front party. The amendments were supported by President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc, the People’s Front, the Radical Party and three offshoots of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions – the Opposition Bloc, Vidrodzhennya and the People’s Will.
