Draft bill #9396 of June 16, 2023
Sponsor: an MP
Status: submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
Who is affected: suspects, accused persons, prosecutors, investigators, judges, investigative judges, law enforcement agencies, and lawyers.
Summary of the bill: excludes the provision from the Criminal Procedure Code which, while martial law or a state of emergency is in effect, allows a prosecutor to obtain access to the following legally protected secrets with permission from the head of the prosecutor’s office:
- confidential medical records
- bank secrecy
- information owned by telecommunications operators and providers: about connections, subscribers, provision of services, their duration, content, transmission routes, etc.
- personal data of a person who owns it or keeps it in a personal data database.
Why this is important:
- the law protects an individual from excessive state interference in their life. In particular, the Criminal Procedure Code defines items and documents that contain legally protected secrets. Access to such information by the prosecution can be obtained only after a decision of the investigative judge if the prosecution proves that such data can be used as evidence and it is impossible to obtain the required information by other means
- after the beginning of the large-scale invasion, MPs amended some laws aimed at increasing the effectiveness of pre-trial “hot-on-the-trail” investigations and countering cyber-attacks. Some of these amendments partially deprived courts of control over the prosecutor’s access to legally protected secrets.
What is right:
- prosecutors and investigators will not be able to abuse their powers
- judicial control over the prosecution’s access to legally protected secrets will be re-established.