Photo from UNIAN, by Andriy Kravchenko

Chief of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's Office Andriy Yermak has unveiled an action plan with three steps to end the constitutional crisis in Ukraine.

The action plan for Ukraine's exit from the constitutional crisis was developed at a National Anti-Corruption Council meeting, he wrote on Facebook on November 27.

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"As a way out of this constitutional crisis, three important steps need to be taken:

The first one is to restore criminal liability for deliberate failure to file an assets declaration or for providing false information in assets declarations. Volodymyr Zelensky's opinion is that the criminal liability for this should be quite strict.

The second one is to restore the powers of the NACP [National Agency on Corruption Prevention] to monitor e-declaration, and to address the issue of judges' assets declarations.

The third is to tackle the issue of forming NABU [National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine] and ensure the guarantee of its director's activities," he wrote.

According to Yermak, to carry out these steps, all authorities must act in a coordinated and efficient manner.

"Members of the government, lawmakers, together with the expert community, must promptly finalize the relevant legislative initiatives, and the Verkhovna Rada must adopt them as soon as possible," he said.

Background

  • On July 28, the Constitutional Court ruled unconstitutional the presidential decree of April 16, 2015, on the appointment of Artem Sytnyk as NABU Director.
  • On September 16, the Constitutional Court ruled that a number of provisions of the law on NABU are unconstitutional, and that they will lose force in three months, that is, in mid-December.
  • In particular, the provisions on empowering the President of Ukraine to form NABU, to appoint and dismiss its director, to appoint three persons to the commission for holding a competition for the position of the bureau's director, to appoint one member of the external control commission to conduct an independent assessment (audit) of NABU's effectiveness, its operational and institutional independence, and to approve the provisions on the Civil Oversight Council and the procedure for its formation were designated as unconstitutional.
  • On November 27, Zelensky submitted bill No. 4434 to parliament to reinstate criminal liability for including false information by officials in their assets declarations or failure to declare income and other assets.