Weekly analysis for 02 — 08 June

Government Proposes Granting the Customs Service Pre-Trial Investigation Powers

Event: 

On June 3, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine submitted a new version of the Customs Code of Ukraine to Parliament (Draft Law No. 15295).

The drafting and adoption of the new Customs Code are driven by the need to align Ukrainian legislation with the EU Customs Code and other EU legislation in this area, as well as to extend the provisions of the Law of Ukraine “On Administrative Procedure” to customs-related legal relations, as envisages by the Roadmap for Public Administration Reform.

The new Customs Code is intended to harmonize Ukrainian customs legislation with the EU Customs Code and other relevant EU legal acts. It also provides for the application of the Law of Ukraine “On Administrative Procedure” to customs-related legal relations, as set out in the Roadmap for Public Administration Reform. 

At the same time, the draft Code provides for the establishment of specialized law enforcement units within the State Customs Service. Detectives assigned to these units would be authorized to conduct operational-search activities and carry out pre-trial investigations into smuggling offenses.

CPLR’s assessment

The proposed transformation of the State Customs Service from an inspection authority into another pre-trial investigation body raises serious concerns.

None of Ukraine’s key strategic documents on European integration (including the Roadmap on the Rule of Law, the Roadmap on Public Administration Reform, the European Commission’s Enlargement Report) or criminal justice (the Comprehensive Strategic Plan for the Reform of Law Enforcement Agencies as Part of Ukraine’s Security and Defence Sector for 2023–2027) envisage such fundamental changes to Ukraine’s law enforcement system. Nor has the proposal been the subject of a broad expert discussion on its merits.

The only strategic document that envisages such a reform is the sector-specific National Revenue Strategy through 2030. It calls for complementing the criminalization of the illegal cross-border movement of goods, introduced by a 2023 Law, by empowering customs authorities to conduct operational-search activities and carry out pre-trial investigations into smuggling offenses.

The government’s initiative encroaches on the mandate of the Economic Security Bureau (BES), which is currently responsible for investigating smuggling offenses under Articles 201-3 and 201-4 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. It may also be viewed as inconsistent with Ukraine’s commitments under the EU accession process, as one of the EU membership benchmarks (IBM 24.7.4) requires Ukraine to demonstrate tangible progress in further strengthening the BES’s capacity, status, and independence.

The draft Code contradicts the logic and trajectory of law enforcement reforms pursued over the past two decades. The adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine” in 2021 and the establishment of the BES as a separate central executive authority gave effect to the principles set out in the 2008 Concept for Reforming Criminal Justice in Ukraine, which called for the tax police to be separated from the State Tax Service and transformed into an independent criminal justice body responsible for investigating tax, financial, and customs offenses.

By contrast, the creation of specialized law enforcement units within the State Customs Service to investigate smuggling offenses would reverse this reform trajectory and effectively roll back institutional development by two decades.

The proposal’s inconsistency is further demonstrated by the fact that fully granting the State Customs Service pre-trial investigation powers would require corresponding amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, yet no such amendments have been prepared by the Cabinet of Ministers.

Creating a separate body (unit) to investigate a single category of offenses (smuggling) is not justified from a financial perspective, particularly when the BES already possesses the capacity to perform these functions effectively.

The government’s draft also rolls back reforms introduced by the 2024 law governing the State Customs Service. These include the participation of representatives of international partners with a decisive vote on the selection commission for the Head of the Customs Service, as well as the External Performance Evaluation Commission and the Disciplinary Committee.

Draft Law on Judicial Integrity Declarations Advances to Second Reading

Event

On 4 June, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy recommended Draft Law №13165-2 on judges’ integrity declarations and declarations of family ties for adoption at second reading. The revised draft law provides for the following:

• merging the integrity declaration and the declaration of family ties into a single declaration;
• revising the list of statements to be included in the judges’ integrity and family ties declaration (the “Declaration”); 
• providing that the declaration may be verified only on the basis of information that reasonably indicates the inaccuracy of information disclosed by a judge, and only within the scope of such information;
• establishing time limits for specific stages of the verification procedure, as well as the period covered by the verification;
• • defining the rights of judges whose declarations are subject to verification, including the right to challenge the results of the declaration verification in court. 

In addition, the draft law would require the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to submit to Parliament a draft law establishing temporary procedures for the individual verification of integrity declarations submitted by judges of the Supreme Court and the higher specialized courts, with the involvement of independent experts.

CPLR’s expert assessment

Enhancing the procedure for verifying judges’ integrity declarations is Ukraine’s core EU-integration commitment. The 2025 Enlargement Report the European Commission, in line with the requirements of the Ukraine Facility Plan, called for improving both the content of integrity declarations submitted by judges and the procedures for their verification. The Report also foresees the temporary but substantial involvement of independent experts delegated by international partners in verifying the integrity declarations of judges of higher courts.

Under the Ukraine Facility Plan, the law and the acts of the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) on verifying judges’ integrity declarations are expected to establish a review mechanism that ensures: 1) clarification of the content of integrity declarations and the grounds for initiating their verification; 2) extension of the period covered by the verification; 3) improvement of the verification procedure by detailing the verification mechanisms and timelines, defining the rights and obligations of individuals and legal entities involved in the verification process, and clarifying the legal consequences of the verification. Similar measures are also reflected in the Roadmap on the Rule of Law

According to CPLR experts, the revised Draft Law not only fails to provide for measures that would ensure the effectiveness of the judicial integrity declaration mechanism, but some of its provisions may in fact further weaken the effectiveness of this mechanism in practice. In particular:

• retention of the existing framework for the verification of integrity declarations: the draft law preserves the current procedure under which holding a judge disciplinarily liable for violations related to an integrity declaration requires a decision of the HQCJ. However, such a decision serves only as a basis for the HCJ to consider whether to initiate disciplinary proceedings. As a result, an HQCJ decision adopted following the verification of an integrity declaration is effectively treated as a disciplinary complaint, thereby significantly prolonging and complicating the process of holding judges accountable. Moreover, the draft law grants judge the right to challenge the results of the verification, with the lodging of such a challenge suspending the entry into force of the relevant HQCJ decision and further extending the duration of the proceedings;
• narrowing the scope of the integrity declaration: the draft law unjustifiably proposes removing from the integrity declaration the requirement for judges to declare that his/her standard of living corresponds to the assets owned and declare that their standard of living is consistent with the assets owned and income received by them and their family members;
• narrowing the grounds for conducting a verification: the proposed wording of Article 62(1) provides that verification of an integrity declaration may be conducted solely on the basis of, and within the scope of, information received by the HQCJ from any person that may indicate the inaccuracy of statements or information contained in the declaration. Consequently, even where the Commission independently identifies circumstances, suggesting that statements made by a judge in the declaration may be inaccurate, it would be unable to initiate a verification. Furthermore, the draft law does not establish any grounds for verifying the accuracy of information declared by judges regarding their family ties;
• limiting the period covered by the verification: the draft law provides that certain statements in the integrity declaration relating to a judge’s integrity (for example, compliance with the Code of Judicial Ethics and the absence of grounds for disciplinary liability) apply only to the one-year period preceding the submission of the declaration, thereby significantly narrowing the scope of the verification;
• absence of provisions governing the legal status of the reporting person: while the draft law defines the rights of the judge whose integrity declaration is subject to verification, it does not establish the rights of the person who submitted information alleging inaccuracies in the declaration.

It is important to note that the draft law postpones, by at least six months, , improvements to the procedure for verifying the integrity declarations of Supreme Court judges, despite the fact that this is one of the priorities of the 2026 EU integration reform agenda under the so-called “Kachka–Kos Plan” and has been identified by the European Commission as an interim benchmark.