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HOT ANTICORRUPTION NEWS / Issue #180
June 23, 2021
  
Today's issue:
 
- Parliament finally approved the HQCJ relaunch;
- Government plans to spend $3.5 billion for road construction bypassing Prozorro system;
- Stricter sanctions for false asset declarations are reinstated;
- SBU tries to find bypass of the future refom; 
- recommended reading
Parliament finally approved the HQCJ relaunch

On June 29, the Parliament approved draft law No. 3711-d in the second reading. The law provides for the relaunch of the High Qualification Commission of Judges under the more competitive and transparent rules of selection of Commission's members. The law also strengthens the institutional capacity and independence of the HQCJ.
The Parliament supported a key amendment on the decisive role of international experts during the selection process. However, due to the existence of several mutual exclusive provisions in the adopted version of the law, Speaker Razumkov stated that the law should be vetoed by the President and corrected during the upcoming plenary week.
Government plans to spend $3.5 billion for road construction bypassing Prozorro system
On June 3, the Parliament adopted controversial amendments to the public procurement regulations. They removed from the Prozorro system the procurement of works and all related services for the construction of the Grand Ring-Road around Kyiv (Kyiv region) of the estimated cost of at least 85 billion UAH (~3.5 billion). The AntAC called on vetoing the law, but the President signed it last week. Moreover, MPs plan to exempt from Prozorro system even more public procurements. 
Stricter sanctions for false asset declarations are reinstated
On June 29, after the Presidential veto, the Parliament adopted draft law No. 4651 enhancing the liability for false declarations. The Parliament took into account the President's reservations and deleted the harmful provisions introduced during the second hearing. The law decreases the threshold for criminal liability and introduces the imprisonment term as one of the sanctions for false asset declarations.
SBU tries to find bypass of the future refom
Last week, the Parliament adopted draft law No.5219 “On Critical Infrastructure” in the first reading. In fact, the draft law amends the current law “On the Security Service of Ukraine” and gives the SBU power to protect critical infrastructure. The proposed amendments before the first reading, in fact, return in converted form the possibility of the SBU interfering in the investigation in the field of economics and anti-corruption. 
It may be an attempt to roll back the existing consensus to deprive the SBU of investigative powers through prevention of voting on the reform and at the same time to regaining lost powers through the proposed law.
Recommended Reading 
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Should you have any questions or comments please contact Tetiana Shevchuk at tshevchuk@antac.org.ua

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