Weekly analysis for 03 — 09 March

The Prosecutor’s Office Risks Becoming a Brake on Reforms and European Integration

The reform of law enforcement agencies in Ukraine through the end of 2027 is being implemented in accordance with the Comprehensive strategic plan, approved by a presidential decree, as well as the Government’s Action Plan for its implementation.

 Given the leading role played by the former leadership of the Office of the Prosecutor General in drafting these strategic reform documents, as well as the constitutional functions of the prosecution service in organizing and exercising procedural supervision over pre-trial investigations (Article 131-1 of the Constitution of Ukraine) and its statutory authority to coordinate the activities of law enforcement agencies in combating crime (Part 2 of Article 25 of the Law on the Prosecutor’s Office), the Office of the Prosecutor General has been assigned responsibility for implementing more than half of the measures under the Comprehensive strategic plan (103 out of 198).

However, the current situation regarding the implementation of the Action Plan by the Office of the Prosecutor General is highly concerning. Twelve draft laws have not passed the required approval process and have not been formally registered in parliament, while the implementation of a further 28 measures remains incomplete.

CPLR’s expert assessment 

Achieving substantial progress in implementing the Action Plan for the implementation of the Comprehensive strategic plan is one of the interim benchmarks set by the European Commission for Ukraine’s accession to the EU (IBM 24.7.1). Therefore, the proper and timely implementation of the Strategy is not only a domestic task aimed at quality improving the law-enforcement system and its functioning, but also an important requirement in the context of Ukraine’s European integration.

Difficulties in implementing the Comprehensive strategic plan emerged in October 2024 following the dismissal of the former Prosecutor General and intensified after the appointment of the current Prosecutor General in June 2025.

According to the current Prosecutor General’s interpretation, the constitutional status of the prosecution service as an independent body prevents its leadership from participating in any joint commissions with representatives of the executive branch or from taking responsibility for drafting legislative proposals, given that the prosecution service does not possess the right of legislative initiative.

Relying on this reasoning — which, in our view, is flawed — the leadership of the Office of the Prosecutor General refused to join the Coordination Council responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Action Plan under the Strategy. At the same time, the Council includes the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Head of the National Police, the Head of the State Border Guard Service, the Director of the State Bureau of Investigation, and the Head of the Customs Service.

Instead of preparing and approving 12 draft laws in accordance with the Rules of Procedure of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and submitting them to parliament through the Government, which has the right of legislative initiative under Article 93 of the Constitution of Ukraine, the Office of the Prosecutor General simply forwarded them to the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. This appears to be an attempt to circumvent its obligations.

At the same time, the leadership of the prosecution service has successfully used, and continues to use, the procedure provided for in the Rules of Procedure of the Cabinet of Ministers when preparing draft laws or government regulations in cases where it is genuinely interested in their adoption.

The Prosecutor General is also using the media, political and other levers of influence to secure the adoption of controversial legislation, including a law introducing mandatory life imprisonment for certain categories of crimes.

The Prosecutor General also actively participated in drafting and promoting the law of 22 July 2025 aimed at stripping the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine of their institutional independence. According to analysts, this, together with threats directed by the Prosecutor General against his opponents, which are unacceptable in a democratic society, creates an obstacle to Ukraine’s progress toward membership in the EU.

Such a non-constructive position of the leadership of the prosecution service in Ukraine also creates serious risks for the implementation of the Ukraine Facility Plan, on which the disbursement of financial assistance from the European Union to the state budget directly depends. In particular, point 3.12 of the Plan requires the entry into force of a law introducing a transparent procedure for the selection of prosecutors in the first quarter of 2026, with the Office of the Prosecutor General designated as responsible for preparing the relevant draft law. However, with less than one month remaining before the deadline for fulfilling this commitment, the draft law has still not been registered in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Therefore, the failure of the prosecution service leadership to implement both the Comprehensive strategic plan for the reform of law enforcement authorities and the Ukraine Facility Plan poses a direct risk to the country’s progress toward EU integration.

Reform? The Government Proposes Strengthening Administrative Responsibility for Financial Law Violations

Event

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has submitted to Parliament Draft Law № 15043 of February 24, 2026, “On Amendments to the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences to Strengthen Responsibility for Violations of Financial Legislation”. The draft law proposes to amend Article 38 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences by extending the limitation period for imposing administrative penalties for offences under Article 164-2 of the Code to one year from the date the offence is committed. The draft law also proposes to increase the level of fines. In particular, the fine would rise from 8–15 to 50–70 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens (from UAH 136–255 to UAH 850–1,190). For a repeated offence committed within one year, the fine would increase from 10–20 to 60–80 non-taxable minimum incomes (from UAH 170–340 to UAH 1,020–1,360).

According to the explanatory note, the proposed amendments are intended to improve the effectiveness of administrative responsibility, ensure the inevitability of punishment, and promote stronger financial discipline, since the current fines are negligible and have not been revised for a long time, while the existing short limitation periods hinder effective investigation.

CPLR’s assessment

An analysis of Draft Law №15043 indicates that the proposed amendments are largely technical in nature and primarily aimed at correcting outdated provisions rather than introducing systemic reform of the relevant regulatory framework. Although the proposed amendments technically correspond to international standards in the areas of anti-corruption and financial accountability, the legislative initiative appears to give insufficient consideration to the actual structure and prevalence of financial offences, the specific corruption risks present in the private sector and in the management of public resources, as well as the practical capacity to detect such violations and ensure accountability. Notably, the concealment of corruption through accounting manipulation is not mentioned at all. The fact that the proposed amendments concern exclusively administrative responsibility may indicate an approach that lacks sufficient comprehensiveness and does not adequately differentiate legal responses depending on the nature and severity of the offence

Article 14 of the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption of the Council of Europe requires states to adopt criminal or other sanctions for financial offences involving “acts or omissions, when committed intentionally, in order to commit, conceal or disguise” the corruption offences. In addition, Articles 18 and 19 of the Convention require that legal persons be subject to “effective, proportionate and dissuasive criminal or non-criminal sanctions and measures, including monetary sanctions”. While the Criminal Code of Ukraine explicitly establishes liability for the use of forged documents (Article 358), most conduct related to the falsification of accounting records or financial statements is not directly criminalized and is only partially covered by other criminal or administrative offences. Furthermore, the connection between corruption offences and false financial reporting, falsified accounting records, hidden accounts, fictitious expenses, and obstruction of financial oversight remains fragmented and insufficiently institutionalized in Ukrainian legislation. This significantly complicates the proper legal qualification of such conduct and undermines the effective prosecution of these offences.

Article 30 of the United Nations Convention against corruption requires states to ensure proper management of public finances, prevent the falsification of accounting records, and establish effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions for financial offences related to corruption.  Similar requirements are contained in European Union law governing accounting and the protection of financial interests, in particular Directive 2013/34/EU, Directive (EU) 2017/1371, which address situations where accounting manipulation may be used to conceal corruption or other forms of financial misconduct. Article 8 of the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions also requires the application of effective sanctions for improper accounting practices and false financial reporting.

The OECD Working Group on Bribery has repeatedly recommended that states avoid purely symbolic fines that lack a genuine deterrent effect. In this context, a maximum fine of UAH 1,190 for the intentional inclusion of false information in financial statements can hardly be considered effective, proportionate, or dissuasive. As long as the financial consequences of a violation do not exceed the potential benefits derived from it, efforts to ensure financial discipline risk remaining largely declaratory.

By proposing a comparatively low administrative fine, the draft law also ignores a widely used regulatory approach under which sanctions are directly linked to the amount of the identified violation or to the annual turnover of the legal entity in the most recent reporting period. Furthermore, the current wording of Article 164-2 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences imposes the same penalty for a minor technical error as for deliberate misconduct.

Extending the limitation period to one year (Article 38 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences) may address the widespread judicial practice of closing cases due to the expiry of limitation periods and may also improve statistics on the number of administrative offence reports. However, without a substantial increase in the amount of fines, this measure alone is unlikely to strengthen financial discipline or improve the effectiveness of accounting oversight

Conclusion

The proposed amendments are largely targeted and technical and do not provide a foundation for the systemic reform of financial control mechanisms, particularly in the anti-corruption context. The draft law does not create sufficient preconditions to strengthen financial discipline or to ensure the inevitability of liability for violations.

To achieve a genuine reform effect, the fixed scale of fines should be replaced with differentiated sanctions linked to the severity of the offence and the damage caused or, in the case of legal entities, their total annual turnover. Reform should extend beyond revising sanction levels and should also strengthen the institutional capacity of financial oversight authorities, including their ability to detect violations, investigate misconduct, and effectively enforce liability.