As reported, on September 3, the Verkhovna Rada voted to adopt on its merits bill No. 7203 amending Article 80 of the Constitution of Ukraine which fully abolishes parliamentary immunity from 2020.
The law removes from Article 80 of the Constitution the provision stating that parliamentarians cannot be prosecuted, detained or arrested without the consent of the Verkhovna Rada and that they are guaranteed parliamentary immunity.
Only one provision remained in the article. This states that Ukrainian parliamentarians do not bear legal liability for the voting outcomes or statements made in the parliament or its bodies, with the exception of liability for slander or defamation.
At the end of 2019, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed bill No. 2237 into law, bringing the Ukrainian legislation regarding the immunity of deputies into line with the Constitution of Ukraine.
According to the adopted amendments, the application for permission to detain, select the measure of restraint (detention in custody, house arrest), and other investigative search actions must be agreed with the prosecutor general.
Investigators of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the central office of the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) are entitled to conduct pretrial investigation of criminal proceedings opened against MPs. It is forbidden to entrust the execution of a pretrial investigation of a criminal offense committed by an MP of Ukraine to other bodies of pretrial investigation, except for the NABU and the central office of the SBI in accordance with their investigative jurisdiction.
