Venice Commission notes “punitive” nature of “deoligarchization law”

The opinion was published on the Commission's website, reports Ukrinform.

According to the document, the concentration of great influence in the hands of a private individual is indeed dangerous, and to address this, an effective competition policy, the fight against corruption and money laundering, ensuring pluralism of mass media, and other measures need to be taken.

At the same time, instead of such a multi-sectoral "systemic" approach, the law on oligarchs provides for a “personal” one.

“This ‘personal approach’, as specified by the Law on Oligarchs, seeks to identify persons as ‘oligarchs’ through specific criteria, such as wealth, media ownership (etc.), and subjects them to a series of limitations (prohibiting them for example to finance political parties and election campaigns). This approach has an undeniably punitive character,” the Venice Commission believes.

As noted in the opinion, there are no universal tools to fight oligarchic influence, and in exceptional situations such measures of a personal nature may be justified as a last resort, on temporarily. However, they can only be a supplement and not an alternative to the "systemic" approach, the Venice Commission emphasizes.

“Currently, the Law on Oligarchs cannot be seen as a democratic response to the scourge of oligarchisation. The Law is difficult to reconcile with principles of political pluralism and the rule of law, as it has the potential of being misused for political purposes. Therefore, the Venice Commission concludes that the Law should not be implemented as it currently stands and that a ‘systemic’ approach should be pursued,” the opinion reads.

The Venice Commission recommends that Ukraine legislatively postpone the implementation of the law on oligarchs, identifying its shortcomings and developing an alternative bill that would provide for an effective competition policy, increasing the transparency of public procurement, fighting corruption, strengthening mass media pluralism, etc.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, in November 2021, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law the bill on the prevention of threats to national security associated with excessive influence of persons having significant economic or political weight in public life (oligarchs).

The document provides a legal framework for separating big business from political struggle and for limiting the destructive influence of vested (oligarchic) interests on the economic life, establishes criteria for identifying oligarchs and requirements for transparency of contacts between political figures and officials with oligarchs or their representatives.

On June 29, 2022, President Zelensky put into effect the decision of the NSDC on the register of oligarchs.

In March 2023, Minister of Justice Denys Maliuska stated that the only barrier to the implementation of the law on oligarchs is the European Commission's requirement to see the opinion of the Venice Commission on the law.