Law 4555: A Blow to the Anti-Corruption System and a Rollback on European Integration
On July 3, 2025, legislative act No. 4555 “Concerning Revisions to the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine Regarding Peculiarities of Preliminary Inquiry into Criminal Infractions Linked to the Absence of Individuals under Specific Conditions during a State of Emergency” was sanctioned (the legislative blueprint was filed on January 16, 2025, under No. 12414 and sanctioned by the Verkhovna Rada on July 22, 2025; hereafter, Law 4555).
The Center for Political and Legal Reform scrutinized the modifications this Law introduces to the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and reached the determination that it clashes with numerous international covenants and domestic statutes.
As articulated in the title of the legislation, it brings about certain alterations to the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), alongside the Statute “Regarding the Public Prosecutor’s Office”:
1. Diminishing the significance of SAP.
The chief of SAP has transitioned into a nominal figure in terms of power, essentially indistinguishable from other Deputy Prosecutors General. This individual no longer presides over the prosecutor’s office for SAP prosecutors, nor do they wield the authority of the prosecutor’s office leader, as outlined by the Criminal Procedure Code, in criminal proceedings falling under NABU’s purview. They are no longer empowered to designate the prosecutor overseeing proceedings in a specific criminal case, assemble a group of prosecutors, or appoint the senior prosecutor for such a group.
The SAP head, including their principal deputy and deputies, are barred from augmenting, modifying, or retracting an appeal or cassation complaint, or a request for review of a judicial verdict based on new or extraordinary circumstances, tendered by them, the department heads, deputy heads, or SAP prosecutors. Moreover, they lack the authority to extend the duration of the pre-trial investigation upon informing an individual suspected of perpetrating a corruption-related criminal offense.
The capacity of SAP prosecutors to engage in plea agreements with suspects or defendants in pertinent criminal cases under NABU’s investigation is being curtailed. The execution of such plea agreements will become nearly unattainable without the endorsement of the Prosecutor General, should they so require.
2. Augmentation of the Prosecutor General’s prerogatives.
According to the amendments introduced by Act 4555, the Attorney General:
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– possesses a novel and exclusive authority to formally accuse the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine and their deputies, as well as the Prime Minister of Ukraine, a member of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the principal deputy and deputy minister, the Director of the State Bureau of Investigation, their principal deputy and deputy, the Director of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine, their principal deputy and deputy, a civil servant whose position is classified under category “A”;
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– is entitled to issue a mandatory written directive to the head of NABU mandating the provision of pre-trial investigation materials, and upon accessing these materials, may authorize another prosecutor to undertake an audit of adherence to laws during the pre-trial investigation. This action introduces a hazard to the confidentiality of the pre-trial investigation;
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– instructs an alternate pre-trial investigation body to manage a pre-trial inquiry into criminal offenses falling under NABU’s jurisdiction, “in instances of an ineffectual pre-trial investigation or the presence of objective conditions rendering it infeasible for the relevant pre-trial investigation body to function or execute a pre-trial investigation under a state of emergency”;
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– transfers proceedings concerning criminal offenses delineated in Articles 369 and 369-2 of the Criminal Code (providing an illicit advantage to an official and abusing influence), committed by high-ranking officials, to the jurisdiction of NABU detectives, contingent on the criminal offense inflicting or potentially inflicting substantial detriment to the freedoms and interests of an individual or legal entity safeguarded by law, along with state or societal interests (notably, the realization of constitutional rights, liberties, and duties of three or more individuals);
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– arbitrates disagreements concerning jurisdiction in criminal proceedings potentially falling within NABU’s jurisdiction.
3. Revisions to personnel procedures within the prosecutor’s office
Law 4555 modifies the protocols for choosing prosecutors at all echelons during a state of emergency. At present, virtually any prosecutor in a local prosecutor’s office, or an individual with no prior experience in a prosecutor’s office, may be appointed to the Prosecutor General’s Office sans any competitive evaluation. This requires only the submission of an application by a prosecutor, while a non-prosecutor must tender the requisite documents for a prosecutorial post, encompassing an application, a medical attestation, a certificate of proficiency in the official language, a duplicate of a law degree, etc.
The revised rendition of Article 60 of the Statute “Regarding the Public Prosecutor’s Office,” following the modifications implemented by Law 4555, permits the termination of a prosecutor who declines to consent to an assignment to a vacant or provisionally vacant position or relocation to such a position within another prosecutorial entity within 30 days of notification regarding the vacant position.
The determination of dismissing a prosecutor on these grounds is deliberated by the entity administering disciplinary proceedings. Repeated failure of the prosecutor to attend a hearing, irrespective of the rationale, does not preclude the matter from being examined in their absence. Functionally, this denotes that the regional prosecutor might be presented with a considerably less appealing position, and dissent to such a transfer would precipitate their dismissal.
4. Additional modifications
Law 4555 revises Part Three of Article 233: “An investigator, inquiring officer, or prosecutor shall retain the prerogative, antecedent to the issuance of a ruling by the examining magistrate, to enter a dwelling or other property belonging to an individual exclusively in exigent circumstances germane to safeguarding human lives, averting an immediate peril to their well-being, sexual autonomy, or personal security, or during the direct apprehension of individuals suspected of perpetrating transgressions under Articles 112, 115–119, 121, 122, 124, 127, 129, 135, 136, 146, 147, 149, 152–156-1, 258, 258-1, 259 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, or should the prompt impoundment or preservation of evidence pertaining to such transgressions be requisite.”
This alludes to specific criminal offenses that encroach upon the life and health, liberty, honor, dignity of an individual, their sexual autonomy and sexual inviolability, including public safety (terrorism).
Evaluation by the Central Committee of the Russian Federation
According to the Constitution, Ukraine stands as a sovereign and independent, democratic, social, and lawful nation, where the tenet of the rule of law is acknowledged and enforced.
A catalyst for the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights arose from the cognizance that the disregard and violation of human rights had spawned barbaric acts that offended the conscience of humanity. Consequently, the establishment of a global order wherein individuals possess freedom of expression and belief, untethered from fear and want, was avowed as the paramount aspiration of humankind.
Article 17 of the European Convention on Human Rights stipulates that no provision within this Convention shall be construed as conferring upon any State, group, or person the entitlement to engage in any activity or perform any action purposed toward the eradication of any rights and freedoms articulated within this Convention, or the imposition of limitations beyond those explicitly prescribed by the Convention.
In accordance with Article 6 of the UN Convention against Corruption, each State Party shall guarantee to the body or bodies entrusted with the prevention of corruption the requisite independence, concordant with the fundamental tenets of its legal framework, to empower said body or bodies to execute their duties efficaciously and insulated from undue influences.
The robust operation of anti-corruption entities constituted a precondition for extending EU membership status to Ukraine. A discrete division within the Roadmap for EU Accession, ensconced within the “Fundamentals” segment on guaranteeing the rule of law, is allocated to appraising their functionalities. The necessity for their uninterrupted autonomous operation is underscored in each European Commission report.
The Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2021–2025, among its anticipated strategic outcomes, prescribes that assurances of the institutional and operational independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office ought to be meticulously defined and implemented in practice.
Nevertheless, subsequent to the revisions enacted by Law 4555, the head of the SAP is stripped of pivotal procedural authorities; their mandate is predominantly downsized to representative and administrative roles; the Prosecutor General assumes a leading position in procedural affairs, and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office itself will maintain the special status of a discrete structural unit of the prosecutor’s office solely in nomenclature.
All mechanisms of influence over anti-corruption inquiries are devolved to the Prosecutor General, who is designated by the Verkhovna Rada upon the endorsement of the President, absent a competition, without an integrity verification, or an evaluation of professional attributes.
Expedited procedures for appointments within the prosecutor’s office and grounds for termination, potentially contrived artificially, engender prospects for reprisals against prosecutors who discharge their responsibilities conscientiously and with probity. Whereas previously only the Prosecutor General bore political dependency, Law 4555 erodes the autonomy of all prosecutors.
The excessive “unity and centralization” of the prosecutorial infrastructure, which was dismantled in 2014 via the adoption of the novel Statute “Regarding the Public Prosecutor’s Office,” is being reinstated. Subsequent to amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine in 2016, the prosecutor’s office is being extricated from the so-called fourth “control and supervisory” branch of government and assimilated into the justice apparatus.
Given that the European and Euro-Atlantic trajectory is enshrined within the preamble of the Basic Law, the operation of the prosecutor’s office must align with European standards, mirroring the tenets applicable to the judiciary—notably, the principle of independence (internal and external). The modifications promulgated within the Criminal Procedure Code by Law 4555 effectively undermine these tenets, thereby contravening the Constitution of Ukraine and its European integration obligations.
The deprivation of procedural independence for SAP prosecutors, juxtaposed with the capacity for alternate prosecutors to access criminal case records at the Prosecutor General’s behest, effectively invalidates the raison d’être of specialized anti-corruption bodies. Furthermore, the Prosecutor General wields the discretion to pronounce any NABU case ineffectual and transfer it to the State Bureau of Investigation or the National Police, thereby transforming the crusade against corruption into a vehicle for interagency rivalry and rendering it farcical.
Concerning the amplification of the grounds for entering an individual’s domicile or other property antecedent to a ruling by an examining magistrate, these amendments delineate the circumstances wherein the guarantee of inviolability of the domicile may be infringed absent judicial sanction, particularly in cases implicating crimes posing the gravest societal peril. Nevertheless, Article 30 of the Constitution of Ukraine safeguards the inviolability of an individual’s domicile or other property and expressly mandates that an alternate protocol for entry, inspection, and search, established by law, remains viable in exigent scenarios entailing the preservation of lives and property or the immediate apprehension of individuals suspected of perpetrating a crime.
Hence, Law 4555, in contradiction of the Constitution, unreasonably broadens the compendium of urgent cases wherein emissaries of pre-trial investigation entities reserve the entitlement to enter an individual’s domicile or other property without a ruling from an examining magistrate.
Thus, Law 4555 represents a grave menace to the fundamental entitlements of citizens, protection against arbitrary intrusion into their privacy, nullifies Ukraine’s accomplishments in the campaign against corruption, clashes with several fundamental instruments of international and domestic jurisprudence, undermines the bedrock of democracy, begets supplementary avenues for corrupt officials to evade accountability, and casts doubt upon Ukraine’s sustained adherence to European integration imperatives and the Anti-Corruption Strategy.
Source: CPPR
