Minister of Justice Vladislav Kozhukhar
One of the key changes concerns the organization’s personal guarantee—a pretrial measure under which a reputable legal entity guarantees in writing that the defendant will behave appropriately and appear in court, backed by a monetary bond. Since the previous amounts were deemed disproportionately low and were effectively equivalent to bail for individuals, the new law significantly raises the financial threshold. Whereas the bail amount previously ranged from 300 to 1,000 conditional units, it will now increase to between 1,000 and 3,000 conditional units.
In addition, these funds will no longer be transferred to the deposit accounts of the prosecutor’s office or the courts—their administration will be fully transferred to the Agency for the Return of Illicitly Obtained Property.
Digital “Prohibition”
Another important change affects the Criminal Code—from now on, a person under house arrest who leaves their place of residence without authorization will be officially classified as having escaped. This provision grants law enforcement agencies the legal authority to immediately issue a warrant for the offender’s arrest—as soon as the offense is recorded—and to employ the full range of specialized investigative measures to locate them.
The bill also eliminates the temporary window of opportunity that defendants could previously exploit to flee before a sentence actually took effect. Now, if the defendant is absent from the verdict announcement, the court is empowered to issue a ruling directly during the hearing to place the defendant on a wanted list and impose a travel ban.
The institution of travel bans (consemn) is being introduced into the Code of Criminal Procedure, and it is divided into two types: informational and border-based. These digital tools will make it possible to quickly locate a person and instantly block any attempts to cross the border.
The bill must be passed by Parliament.
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