Cabinet submits to Rada bills on creation of Supreme Arbitration Court, abolition of 'Lozovy's amendments' in pursuance of memo with IMF
The Government of Ukraine registered two bills in the Verkhovna Rada on Monday: No. 12367 on the abolition of the so-called "Lozovy's amendments" and No. 12368 on the creation of the Supreme Administrative Court to replace the liquidated Kyiv District Administrative Court.
The relevant information was published on the parliament's website, but the bills' texts are not yet available.
The memorandum on economic and financial policies with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) within the extended arrangement contains two structural beacons with a deadline of the end of this year in the form of the adoption of the specified laws.
It is already obvious that the deadlines for implementing these beacons will be violated, but there is a possibility of their adoption before the next revision of the program, scheduled for February-March of this year.
According to the Memorandum, one of the bills provides for amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code, which will allow the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office to manage requests for extradition and mutual legal assistance, as well as rationalization of the consequences of the expiration of pretrial investigation periods (including in corruption cases), which will neutralize the effect of "Lozovy's amendments."
The second implies the adoption of a law on the creation of a new court that will consider administrative cases against national government bodies (the Cabinet of Ministers, the NBU, NABU, NACP) by judges who have passed the appropriate check for professional competence and integrity.
As representative of the Cabinet of Ministers in the Rada Taras Melnychuk said in Telegram channel, for this purpose the bill provides for the formation of the Expert Council by the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine as an auxiliary body for the qualification assessment of the suitability of candidates for the position of judges. It is proposed that the Expert Council will operate for six years and will include three persons proposed by the Council of Judges of Ukraine and three persons proposed by international and foreign organizations that have provided international technical assistance to Ukraine in the field of judicial reform and/or preventing and combating corruption over the past five years.
In accordance with the bill, this court will also consider cases on the claim of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine in the field of state assistance to business entities; on the implementation of state regulation, supervision and control in the media; on the cancellation of the registration of a political party.
If adopted, its powers will also include cases on appealing decisions of the competition commission for the selection of the heads of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA), the Director of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine and the Head of the State Customs Service, as well as the Commission for the External Independent Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. The appellate review of judicial decisions of the Supreme Administrative Court will be carried out by the appellate chamber of this court as a court of appeal, the bill states.