The International Press Institute (IPI) calls on the Verkhovna Rada not to vote for draft bill No. 14057, which poses risks of censorship and sets excessively strict requirements for the media, and to consult with the media and civil society with regards to the bill, the organisation reports.
“IPI calls on the Ukrainian parliament to refrain from adopting new regulations which would greatly compromise the exercise of independent journalism,” said IPI Eastern Europe Advocacy Lead Karol Łuczka.
He added that in its current form the bill would especially limit the activities of investigative journalists, whose job is to uncover abuses of power not detected by the judicial system.
“We call upon Ukrainian lawmakers to consult with civil society and representatives of the country’s independent media over the proposed legal changes, to avoid adopting a legal text which restricts journalists from doing their job,” he said.
IMI’s expertise on the draft bill
Institute of Mass Informatio experts believe that bill No. 14057, registered in the parliament by a group of deputies on 21 September 2025, creates censorship risks and sets excessively strict requirements for the media.
The draft bill in question is “On Amendments to the Civil Code of Ukraine With Regards to the Updates (Recodification) of the Placement of Book Two”.
Namely, the bill increases the likeliness of “prior censorship”, that is, enables the authorities to ban a piece of reporting even before it is published (including in online news outlets, social media, and other “web resources”). According to IMI experts, this is a classic example of prior restraint, which creates a threat of violation of Art. 10 of the Convention on Human Rights.
Furthermore, the bill proposes blocking access to material (such as suspending an online media page) as a measure of such “pre-censorship” and as a response to “violations of personal rights.” This may lead to excessive pressure on the media to take down content, as well as to increasing self-censorship and abuse of legal procedures by officials or corporations. “Such requirements should contain guarantees of proportionality, be targeted narrowly, and this should be a last resort: priority should be given to more democratic alternatives such as pre-trial settlement,” says Volodymyr Zelenchuk, a lawyer at the Institute of Mass Information.
Another very problematic aspect of the bill is expanding the right of refutation and the right of response in the media. This means that any mention of a person in the media grants this person the right to reply if, in their opinion, the media outlet violated their “personal rights.” The person in question need not even be mentioned by name: it is enough “that a specific person can be identified from the reporting or that they are included in the group of persons referred to in the reporting.” The right of reply is offered regardless of the reporter’s fault or even of whether the information affecting the personal rights is misleading or not.
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, Chair of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech, later withdrew his signature on Bill No. 14057 “On Amendments to the Civil Code of Ukraine With Regards to the Updates (Recodification) of the Placement of Book Two” and initiated a meeting between media lawyers and the drafters of the bill.
