The Commission on the Strengthening of Democracy and Affirmation of the Rule of Law believes that the draft Criminal Procedure Code, passed at its first reading in the Verkhovna Rada on 9 February, needs significant reworking.

Opposition deputies want to decriminalize certain Articles of the Criminal Code. President Yanukovych has also spoken out in favour of decriminalization, but not for official, but for economic, offences.

A roundtable discussion took place on 13 and 14 September on “Doctrinal guidelines for a new draft of the Criminal Procedure Code”, where the first stages of a draft, put together by the working group of the National Commission working on the new Criminal Procedure Code [CPC], were presented.

Mr Jeremy Mc Bride, Director of Human Rights Law and Practice Programme School of Law, University of Birmingham (United Kingdom)

Comments by Mr Drago Kos, State Undersecretary, Office of the Government of Republic of Slovenia for Prevention of Corruption

Professor Dr. Joachim Herrmann Faculty of Law, University of Augsburg (Germany)

As RUPOR was informed, on March 14 the project of the Criminal-procedural code, whereof many already forgot, is again submitted on the coordinative council of factions in the parliament. Recently recommendations and remarks of the European Council experts have been published in a hundred pages which generally can be defined in one word “defeat”.

The public hearings “Human rights and fundamental freedoms in the draft of the Criminal-Procedural Code of Ukraine” were held on 12 May in Kyiv. The majority of the participants mentioned the considerable number of drawbacks of the draft, which drawbacks created the auspicious conditions for systematic, uncontrolled and arbitrary violations of rights and fundamental freedoms of common citizens.