Turning the pages back...

April 15, 2006

In an article carried five years ago on April 15, 2001, The Ukrainian Weekly reported that Ukraine's Parliament approved a new Criminal Code to replace the Soviet laws still on the books. Legislation was also moved to a final vote to revamp criminal procedures and the relations between law enforcement officials and the court system.

These legislative actions coincided with the decision by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on April 5, 2001, to recommend the ejection of Ukraine from its membership for failing to fulfill obligations it undertook when Ukraine joined in 1995, related to its criminal, civil and associated procedural codes.

The new Criminal Code, which passed by a vote of 379-3, formalized a February 2000 decision by the Verkhovna Rada to ban the death penalty, replacing it with life imprisonment. It also changed the Soviet practice of appropriating the property of a person convicted of a serious criminal offense, established the juridical recognition that an accused is to be considered innocent until proven guilty by a court of law, introduced community service as a form of criminal punishment, and moved the charge of slander from a criminal to a civil offense. Most significant for the oligarchs was that the new legislation made it illegal for government employees to hold a second job.

In addition, to combat corrupt practices, another bill was in final draft that would take all authorizations for search and seizures from the hands of law enforcement bodies and put them within the authority of the courts. As a building block of a democratic society, the bill would also define the rights of the arrested.

With speculation among politicians that President Leonid Kuchma would veto the bill, Ukraine's Chief Justice Vitalii Boiko said on April 11, 2001, that such a dangerous move would leave the court system outside of the Constitution.

"We must be careful that the judicial system in place does not become illegal," said Judge Boiko.

This legislation took considerable time in moving toward criminal, tort and procedural reform, and most political experts in Ukraine believed the decision taken by PACE was simply a pressure tactic in response to complaints about the delays and problems associated with the investigation of the Gongadze affair and the related tape scandal.

Source: "Verkhovna Rada OKs new Criminal Code" by Roman Woronowycz, The Ukrainian Weekly, April 15, 2001, Vol. LXIX, No. 15.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, April 16, 2006, No. 16, Vol. LXXIV

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