Weekly analytics for 12 — 18 July

Work on the draft of the Action Plan for the Implementation of the Comprehensive Strategic Plan for the Law and Order Bodies Reform for 2023-2027 has started

Event

On July 12, a meeting of the Interdepartmental Working Group on the development of a draft Plan of Actions aimed at the implementation of the Comprehensive Strategic Plan for the reform of law and order bodies as part of the security and defense sector of Ukraine for 2023-2027 took place.

Participants of the interdepartmental working group expressed their proposals and developments, identified specific steps, as well as discussed the terms of preparation of the draft Action Plan. The meeting was attended by the leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the SSU, the State Bureau of Inversigation, the National Police, the Economic Security Bureau, the State Border Service, the State Customs Service, as well as representatives of the Office of the President of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, international experts from the EUAM, the EU project “PRAVO-JUSTICE” , Office of the Council of Europe in Ukraine.

According to the Prosecutor General’s Order №189 of July 12, 2023, the updated composition of the interdepartmental working group includes representatives of the expert environment, in particular, experts of the CPLR Mykola Khavronyuk and Yevhen Krapyvin.

CPLR’s assessment

On May 11, 2023, the President of Ukraine issued a Decree № 273/2023 approving the Comprehensive Strategic Plan for the Reform of Law and Order Bodies as a Part of the Security and Defense Sector of Ukraine for 2023-2027. The content of this document was detailed in previous political analyses (1, 2).

The content of the Plan concerns not only the institutional capacity of law and order bodies — i.e., unification of their legal status, introduction of uniform management practices or institute of detectives – but also criminal policy (for example, introduction of a consistent criminal policy and crime surveys, which have proven their effectiveness in other countries) and criminal procedural legislation (strengthening the protection of participants in criminal proceedings, focusing on the rights of the victim, alternative procedure for resolving criminal legal disputes, etc.).

At the same time, its deliberate development to suit peacetime conditions (on the EU’s recommendation) does not respond to the real challenges that the law and order bodies are facing today, namely the issues of military justice (both prosecution for war crimes and the fight against collaborationism, deterioration of the state of crime in wartime). Furthermore, given the sectoral division of reforms, in particular the anti-corruption reform and the national security sector reform, the Plan does not cover the issues of reforming such a law and order agency as NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office as the structural division of the Office of the Prosecutor General – although its provisions are general and should be applied to these bodies as well. Moreover, the Plan is more of a framework document that defines the directions of reforms and key ideas, and its implementation will depend entirely on the sectoral plans of specific bodies. For more details on the CPLR expert Yevhen Krapyvin’s assessment, please see the publication in “Dzerkalo Tyzhnia”.

The Action Plan is a logical step in the implementation of state policy regarding further reform of law and order bodies and prosecutor’s offices in Ukraine, along with the Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2023-2025 that was previously adopted in the spring of 2023. It will set forth a clear list of measures to implement the strategic goals of the Plan, the terms of their implementation, the bodies that will implement these measures, and the expected result of their implementation.

The CPLR will continue to cover the progress of the implementation of the EU recommendations regarding Ukraine’s acquisition of the status of member of this organization and, in general, the state of reform of the criminal justice system authorities.