Civil society organizations are calling on the President of Ukraine to veto Bill No. 11533, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in the second reading and as a whole on 21 August. The bill, titled “Law on Amendments to the Civil Code of Ukraine and Certain Other Laws of Ukraine Regarding the Provision of Information from Public Digital Registers, Managed by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, and Certain Other Public Digital Registers”, was proposed on 19 August 2024. The Institute of Mass Information is a signatory to the address.

The bill restricts access to information in multiple public digital registers. Namely, to data related to “ensuring national security and defense,” as well as to information on the location and cadastral numbers of real estate of all legal entities.

According to the adopted amendments:

  • companies will be allowed to only list the oblast in public registers instead of their full address;
  • the cadastral numbers of land plots will no longer be open acccess;
  • some legal entities will be allowed to list any contact address, not necessarily the de-facto address of their HQ;
  • access to information on intellectual property will be restricted.

The civil society organizations believe that this not just considerably narrows and limits access to information for potential real estate buyers, but also impedes the tracking of corruption. They note that the adopted amendments create extra risks for notaries, arbitration managers, and other specialists whose work involves data from state registers.

The organizations point that the bill restricts access to information on the location of all legal entities, not just defense-industrial complex enterprises, which is a “disproportionate restriction” and creates opportunities for corruption for those interested in concealing their ownership of property by registering it under a legal entity’s name.

While the bill was under consideration, the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the Ministry of Justice, the parliamentary Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy, and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office emphasized that more reworking is required. They stressed that the proposed restrictions harmed the public interest.

The bill was adopted without discussion in the relevant Committee before the second reading and under an abbreviated procedure, without taking into account the central executive authorities’ proposals.

The statement stresses that the document does not solve the security issue, since information remains accessible, but the work of bona fide users of the State Register of Real Property Rights to Real Estate and other registers is impeded. This creates a “corruption niche for dishonest officials and businesses.”

Civil society organizations called on the President of Ukraine to veto the draft bill and to send it back to the parliament for amendments, such as:

  • restricting access to information about defense-industrial complex enterprises only;
  • ensuring that authorized digital access to addresses, cadastral numbers, and ownership of real estate objects and land plots remains open except in cases directly related to protecting defense enterprises;
  • guaranteeing digital access to registers for identified users.

On 21 August, the Verkhovna Rada unanimously (with 231 votes) adopted Bill No. 11533, restricting access to some of the open data in state registers for the duration of martial law and a year after it is lifted. The journalist community and anti-corruption organizations warn that the restriction on information outlined in the bill are too wide and will interfere with exposing corruption.