Justice Ministry is ignoring "Chesno's" request regarding the confiscation of pro-Russian parties' assets
The Ministry of Justice has been ignoring "Chesno Movement's" request regarding the confiscation of pro-Russian parties' assets for over a month. This is reported on the Movement's website.
The request was submitted back on November 21, but remained without a reply. This violates the law "On access to public information", because a response to an information request must be provided within five working days. The term may be extended up to 20 days only if processing such a request requires more time.
"Chesno" analyst Ihor Feshchenko believes that the Ministry of Justice is deliberately ignoring his request. "I have several reasons to think so. First, I sent another information request to the same email address, but two weeks after the first one, and received a timely reply. Secondly, I sent them a reminder about this first request, and tried to contact their call center a dozen times on different days – to no avail," he said.
In 2022, the Court banned 16 pro-Russian political parties, namely, OPFL, the Shariy Party, the Opposition Bloc, Yevhen Murayev's NASHI party, and others, at the request of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. This decision should have resulted in assets and funds of the banned political parties being passed over to the state.
According to "Chesno's" research, more than 60 real estate objects and one and a half dozen cars, which primarily belong to the Communist Party of Ukraine, are subject to confiscation. Several items also belong to the Socialist Party of Ukraine (controlled by collaborator Illya Kiva in recent years), as well as to Natalia Vitrenko's Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine.
"Over six months have passed since the first pro-Russian parties were banned, so one could expect certain intermediate results regarding the confiscation of their funds and assets. Actually, that's why we sent this request in the first place, but for some reason the Ministry of Justice decided to ignore it," Feschenko believes.
In his opinion, certain delays are understandable due to the general situation in the country and the officials' workload, but it would be inappropriate to tolerate outright ignoring. "That's why I have filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commissioner," Ihor Feshchenko added.
We remind you that the Parliament is considering several draft laws on recalling representatives of the banned parties from local councils. The Verkhovna Rada is also collecting signatures to consider some legislative initiatives, namely those about stripping the OPFL deputies of their mandates, in the session hall.
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