Rada approves law to restart State Bureau of Investigation

A total of 252 MPs voted for a respective decision at a parliament meeting on Tuesday, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

The law, in particular, provides for a change in the legal status of the State Bureau of Investigation. Thus, the SBI is defined as a state law enforcement agency tasked with preventing, detecting, stopping, solving and investigating crimes within its competence (under the current wording of the law on the State Bureau of Investigation, the SBI is a central executive government agency that carries out law enforcement activity to prevent, detect, stop, solve and investigate crimes within its competence).

"The SBI director is empowered to make decisions individually and to bear full responsibility for the results of the bureau's activity. The parliament's oversight function is strengthened. In particular, the Verkhovna Rada, following the consideration of a report by the SBI director for a calendar year, may find the work of the body unsatisfactory, which may serve as a ground for his or her dismissal from this position. In order to ensure the continuity of the investigation into Maidan cases, [the document] envisages the possibility of transferring investigative bodies of the prosecutor's office and prosecutors who investigated these cases to the SBI without the mandatory conduct of a competition," Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Law Enforcement Activity Denys Monastyrsky said from the parliament's rostrum, presenting the document.

Thus, he said, due to a significant change in the powers of the SBI director and a change in the status of this body, from the day the new law comes into force the powers of the SBI director and his deputies are terminated ahead of time and the process of restarting the bureau begins.

The law also specifies the SBI system, the procedure for approving the organizational structure of the body, and the procedure for setting up its territorial departments.

The document changes the approach to determining the maximum number of employees of the central office and territorial departments of the State Bureau of Investigation. It is to be determined by the Cabinet of Ministers at the request of the SBI director (the maximum number of employees of the SBI's central office and territorial departments is currently provided for in the law on the State Bureau of Investigation and is 1,500 people).

In addition, the law specifies the procedure for appointing the SBI director and his powers and standardizes the grounds for bringing SBI employees to disciplinary liability.

It is envisaged that the law will enter into force on the day following its publication in the parliament's Holos Ukrainy newspaper.

The Verkhovna Rada approved the law at first reading on October 17.

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