Lifestyle monitoring of declarants in a state of martial law

Lifestyle monitoring of declarants is one of the financial control mechanisms introduced in 2014 with the entry into force of the Law of Ukraine “On Prevention of Corruption”. The National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) was designated as an entity responsible for the lifestyle monitoring of declarants. By the beginning of the full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022, the NACP had completed only a few dozen monitorings. However, after the suspension of mandatory e-declaring as well as full audits of e-declarations due to the introduction of martial law, the NACP intensified its activities on lifestyle monitoring. Until the fall of 2023, the NACP had conducted monitoring based on the direct provisions of Articles 514, 522 of the Law of Ukraine “On Prevention of Corruption” and internal methodological recommendations. In October 2023, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine introduced several important amendments to the law on lifestyle monitoring. Following this, the NACP approved a separate Procedure for lifestyle monitoring of declarants which was registered with the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. The new Procedure defines key terms, establishes a list of information sources for monitoring, determines the manner of recording monitoring results and regulates a number of other procedural issues. Although the adoption of the Procedure is a positive development, the document has certain legal flaws. These include the absence of deadlines for the monitoring procedure, failure to establish auto-distribution of monitorings among NACP employees, and a controversial form of envisaging the final results of the monitoring. The law enforcement practice in lifestyle monitoring is actively developing. Only in 2023 the NACP launched 621 and completed 552 lifestyle monitorings. However, to guarantee full compliance with the principles of legality, legal certainty, and respect for private and family life, the NACP should eliminate the above flaws of the Procedure and adopt special lifestyle monitoring procedures for judges and judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in accordance with the requirements of the law.