President signed intelligence law that civil society found dangerous
President Zelensky signed the Law on Intelligence, which was adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on September 17, 2020, as this is reported on the president's website.
The signing took place during the head of state's visit to the information department of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGS) on the occasion of the 17th anniversary of the SBGS intelligence.
"Today, I am signing the Law of Ukraine "On Intelligence” adopted by the Verkhovna Rada. The implementation of the provisions of this law will allow creating an effective system of Ukrainian intelligence, which will correspond to the nature and large-scale current threats to the national security of Ukraine," the head of state said.
Supporting intelligence at the legislative level will facilitate the timely detection, prevention and neutralization of threats and increase the ability of intelligence to obtain quality intelligence.
“It should be remembered that the issue of intelligence is a priority, and intelligence materials are the basis for making important government decisions. That is why this law is not only new opportunities and new capabilities for intelligence, but also a great responsibility for the state, which needs to significantly strengthen the strategic and operational components of intelligence, improve analytical work and the quality of information obtained," Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed.
As IMI reported, on September, a number of human rights NGOs requested of the president Volodymyr Zelensky to veto the Law “On Intelligence” №2412-d adopted on September 17, 2020 and remit it to the Verkhovna Rada for new discussion due to violation of the principle of transparency, lack of public discussion and conclusions of the committees.
This is said in a statement from the NGO "Institute of Mass Information", NGO "Interdisciplinary Research and Education Center for Combating Corruption", NGO "Center for Democracy and the Rule of Law", NGO "Blueprint for Free Speech", NGO "Human Rights Platform".
“In particular, the proposed law directly addresses issues of freedom of information, privacy and other rights and freedoms, affects Ukraine’s international obligations to the EU, and thus, in this part, the bill should have been discussed and analyzed by the Humanitarian and Information Policy Committee. Committee on Ukraine's integration into the European Union. Beyond this, given some corruption risks inherent to the draft law, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy had also provide its opinion as to the text of the draft law. However, no committee provided its appropriate opinion as to the text in the first reading, ” the statement read.
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