Draft Law No. 3357 and its main alterations

On April 17, 2020, a group of people’s deputies of Ukraine registered under # 3357 a draft law of Ukraine on Making Changes to the Law of Ukraine on the Basic Principles of Implementation of State Financial Control in Ukraine.

The given draft law intends to make changes only to Article 10 of the Law. In particular, it is proposed that state financial control bodies (controlling bodies) be given unimpeded access to:

- the information with restricted access, which any state body, local self-government body, or any legal entity has;

- personal databases held by state bodies and local self-government bodies without obtaining consent of a data subject.

Despite few changes introduced by the draft law, these developments, by their legal effects, imply a high risk of abuse of powers by controlling bodies, which may lead to violations of rights and interests of both individuals and legal entities.

Proposing the aforementioned changes, lawmakers point out only to the public procurement sphere where introduction of such powers of controlling bodies is expedient. At the same time, under the Law the controlling bodies are not limited only to the public procurement sphere, which, in its turn, will lead to exercising the said powers in other spheres of their activities.

The aforementioned powers are rather wide and significant. The information with restricted access is known to comprise confidential, secret and insider information (for example, bank-client privilege, attorney-client privilege or doctor-patient privilege, etc.). Access to such information without any restrictions and /or restraining mechanisms (for example, court permission) is the violation of constitutional rights, freedoms and interests of an individual that may lead to gross violations on the side of the controlling bodies.

Thus, to achieve the aims specified by the Law, the said changes, by their essence, are expedient, however, their wording must be subject to drastic changes and amendments before they are put to the vote in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.