The Laboratory of Legislative Initiatives RESEARCH "Conflict of Interest and Corruption in Parliamentary Activity: Experience of the EU and Proposals For Ukraine" (July 2011) with the assistance of PDP II.

Download the PDF-file of the RESEARCH (available in Ukrainian only)

April 7, 2011 the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the Law "On Preventing and Combating Corruption," which defined the basic principles of preventing and combating corruption in the public sphere. Although the law largely considered the recommendations of international organizations for the improvement of legal regulation in the fight against corruption, a number of its provisions have a framework character, and their implementation requires the adoption of other legislation (including on Financial Oversight of Public Servants, on Conflict of Interest etc.). Analysis of the Law suggests that it has not fully taken into account features of certain types of service that necessitates modification or incorporation of such features in other legislation. This applies in particular to the legal regulation of people's deputies [MPs] of Ukraine. In recent years the European Union had made a number of steps aimed at improving anti-corruption legislation as a whole, and to prevent conflicts of interest in parliamentary activities in particular. Indeed, before 2000 most Eastern European countries have adopted special laws on conflict of interest, created specialized anticorruption bodies, implemented effective mechanisms to verify the declarations of assets and interests of senior officials, and on informing security persons about the abuse of others. In this context, the success of national legislators appears to be very modest, because, except for the adoption of a new basic anti-corruption law, significant steps towards the prevention of corruption -- in particular, in the political sphere -- have not been taken. Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to occupy a stable low place in the international anti-corruption rankings, while public confidence in the authorities and politicians is very low. It is therefore an especially crucial issue to research the experience of EU countries in combating corruption, especially in the part relating to the activities of members of parliament. After all, parliamentarians play a key role in creating the legal framework for anticorruption policy, respectively - the degree of integrity of their behavior largely determines the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of anti-corruption in other spheres of social life. In this publication special attention is given to study of the basic mechanisms of conflict of interest and corruption in parliamentary activities which has been introduced in the EU member states. Special attention was given to an analysis of the legal regulation of the declaration of income and assets of members of parliament. Based on the research, proposals for improvement of relevant legal regulations in Ukraine were formulated and are presented.