Poroshenko appealed to the Parliament to cancel e-declarations for civil activists

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko appealed to the Verkhovna Rada to approve the draft law that he filed - the law on cancellation of e-declarations for civil activists. He said this on September 7, during his annual address to the members of the Parliament, “Ukrainska pravda” reports. “In July I filed to the Verkhovna Rada an urgent draft law on cancellation of e-declarations for civil activists. I kindly ask you to support it, not to make things look like the President is good and MPs are not so much”, the President said. He admitted that introduction of such declarations was “our common mistake”. “And mistakes need to be fixed”, Poroshenko said. As IMI reported before, on September 7, advocacy organizations published an appeal with a demand to the Parliament to immediately turn down the draft laws No.6674 and No.6675 as of July 10, 2017, and to the President of Ukraine –  to fulfill his promise to cancel the amendments to the anti-corruption legislation as of March 2017. On March 30, in Ukraine the law on amendment of Article 3 of the Law of Ukraine "On prevention of corruption" became effective, according to which members of anti-corruption NGOs are bound to file income e-declarations. This law was signed by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko on March 27. the law was criticized by a number of countries (in particular Canada, USA, EU) and NGOs -  Freedom House, International “Renaissance” Foundation, Human Rights Watch, Reanimation Package of Reforms, Ukrainian Human Rights Helsinki Association, Institute of Mass Information. International “Rennaissance” Foundation reported about a coordinated information campaign against civil experts who work in the sphere of anti-corruption policies, first of all – against the leaders of Public Association “Center for counteraction to corruption”. The Foundation demands the authorities to stop the violations of human rights and to respect their private and family life. On July 8, the President filed to the Parliament drafts on amendment of some laws and to the Tax Code of Ukraine to secure transparency for the public of information on financing of activities of NGOs and use of international technical assistance. Head of the Center for counteraction to corruption Vitaliy Shabunin said that these drafts have unacceptable wording, as «the offered norms introduce and additional form of tax reporting for NGOs and give tax officials full manual control over activities of NGOs ». Executive director of NGO «Transparency International Ukraine» Yaroslav Yurchyshyn said that the drafts offered by the President require additional work by the public and experts before being adopted. On July 10, the Parliament registered both drafts that introduce the mentioned amendments, yet on the next day, on July 11, the Parliament failed to include the voting for these drafts into the agenda due to lack of votes.