Recently, some mass media have published information that the Constitutional Court of Ukraine has received a constitutional petition of 56 Members of Parliament of Ukraine regarding the compliance of the Constitution of Ukraine (constitutionality) with all provisions of the Law of Ukraine “On the National Agency of Ukraine for Finding, Tracing and Management of Assets Derived from Corruption and Other Crimes” (hereinafter - the Law), which provide for the management of seized property.

Given the efforts of some politicians who have signed such petition to create an artificial resonance around this issue and the public dissemination of distorted information, ARMA has analyzed this document and informs the following.

In the ARMA’s view, this petition is groundless, unreasonable and far-fetched, as well as containing numerous distortions of some norms of the Law, ignoring other norms of it, and clear concealment of those norms that completely refute the views expressed in the petition.

At the same time, the submission of a constitutional petition is the right of Members of Parliament of Ukraine. The procedure for reviewing cases in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine provides for the stage of its consideration for admissibility. At this stage, the single body of constitutional jurisdiction in Ukraine adopts a decision on the opening or refusal to open constitutional proceedings under a constitutional petition.

At present, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine has not made a decision to open constitutional proceedings under a constitutional petition.

Therefore, in order to save time and resources, ARMA currently does not see the need for in a thorough dispute over the constitutionality of the provisions of the Law that are called into question in the said constitutional petition.

In the event that the Constitutional Court of Ukraine will open constitutional proceedings under a constitutional petition of Members of Parliament of Ukraine, ARMA will promptly provide substantive and professional explanations from each point of such petition that will completely refute the arguments of Members of Parliament of Ukraine.

Along with this, all managers of seized property and persons who take part in the competitive selection of managers, as well as those who wish to take part in the relevant competitions, ARMA asks to take into account the fact that the submission of the said constitutional petition to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine does not in any way affect the existing contractual legal relations concerning management of the seized property, and also does not prevent the conduct of competitive selection of managers and the conclusion of contracts for the management of the seized property on the basis of such competitions.

ARMA also proposes media representatives, when publishing information on ARMA’s activities, to consider the possibility of a balanced attitude to the statements of the authors of the constitutional petition, to take account of the objective (and not the desirable for such authors) legal consequences of their actions and to avoid misleading by premature conclusions of individual politicians.