Legal news in Ukraine: The launch of the Anticorruption Court, President signed the Law on liability for alimony non-payers, principles of the legal aid changed, new law come into force, Territorial offices of the State Investigation Bureau

Preparations for the launch of the Anticorruption Court continue

The High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine held the first coordination meeting on the launch of the Higher Anti-Corruption Court. The meeting was attended by representatives of the international organizations and diplomatic institutions.

It was decided during the meeting that proposals for the Public Council of international experts candidatures will be submitted by September 15, 2018. It should be noted that the Council is created to help HQCJU in preparing the contest to the Anti-corruption court.

In addition, the High Qualification Commission of Judges began registering intentions to take part in the contest. Lawyers who do not register their intentions will be able to take part in a competition that will begin after its announcement. It should be reminded that one of the conditions for the contest commencement is the election of at least 35 Anticorruption Court Judges.

Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Hroisman previously stated said that the premises for the court should be provided by mid-August.

The President signed the Law on Liability for Non-Payers of Alimony

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed the Law of Ukraine "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Establishing Economic Prerequisites for Strengthening the Protection of the child right to Proper Maintenance"

The law establishes liability for persons who do not pay child support for the maintenance of children with disabilities and children with serious illnesses. At the same time, it is taken into account that untimely payment of alimony is especially negative for children from this vulnerable category.

Non-payment of alimony for the maintenance of a child (for six months) is punished with community work for a period from 120 to 240 hours.

The same penalty is provided for non-payers of three month alimony for the maintenance of a child with a disability, and for a child who has severe perinatal nervous system lesions, congenital malformations, rare Orphan diseases, oncological or oncohematological diseases.

A similar violation committed during the year is punished with socially useful works for a period from 240 to 360 hours. If a person shirked from doing these jobs, then she faces an administrative arrest for up to ten days.

Parents, who do not provide their under-age children with proper living conditions, education and upbringing, will be fined for 15 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens. For a repeated offense, the fine will increase to 100-300 non-taxable minimum incomes.

Also, the Law establishes penalties for failure to comply with the decision of the guardianship authority about how parent who lives separately communicates with the child. Such violation is punishable by a fine of 100 to 150 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens. For the same violation committed repeatedly within a year, a person may be fined for 150 to 300 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens. In addition, the violator may be prohibited from traveling outside Ukraine and restricted in the right to drive.

For an intentional violation of the restriction on the length of the child's stay outside Ukraine, is established a fine of 100-200 non-taxable minimums.

The principles of the free legal aid system changed

The Law of Ukraine "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Establishing Economic Prerequisites for Strengthening the Protection of the child right to Proper Maintenance", in particular, introduced amendments to the Law of Ukraine "On Free Legal Aid".

The document amended some principles of providing Free Legal Aid. Now, free secondary legal aid will be provided to individual subjects of law no more than 6 times during the budget year.

In addition, from now on, workers of Free Legal Aid can, in individual cases, represent the interests of clients in court. Also, Coordination Center may authorize its experts to assist in disputes arising, inter alia, from labor relations, disputes over the protection of social rights, marginal disputes concerning the representation of minors and those who are recognized as incapacitated by the court or whose capacity is limited.

The amendments to the Law also specify the procedure for stopping the provision of legal aid. "Often we faced the situation when our client get another representative in the case. But at the same the termination of the legal assistance provision by a lawyer or a representative of the center was not regulated by law. Now the provision of legal aid is terminated if a person has been prosecuted in a criminal proceeding, found missing or declared dead", said Alexei Boniuk, chairman of the Coordination Center for the free legal aid provision.

Amendments to the law also supplemented the list of grounds and clarified the procedure for replacing lawyers or employees of centers for providing free legal aid.

Among the grounds may be, in particular, the change in the criminal investigation jurisdiction, the refusal of an advocate (or the center representative) to execute an instruction on the grounds provided by law, and the like. In addition, a lawyer may be replaced and excluded from the Registry of Free Legal Aid Advocates due to inadequate discharge of duties.

In addition, amendments to the Regulation on centers for free legal aid provision came into force.

The order specifies the powers of regional centers directors for:

representation of the centers interests in their relations with state authorities, local self-government bodies, legal entities and individuals;

conclusion of contracts;

issuing a power of attorney to represent the center interests;

approval of regulations on the center independent structural divisions;

approval of the center structure within the employees staff number.

Also, the centers directors will be personally responsible for the results of the center's activities.

Regional centers draw up procedural documents and represent in the courts the interests of a person sentenced to imprisonment, issue instructions to lawyers to provide free legal assistance to such persons and the cancellation of these orders.

The law on collective management of copyrights has come into force

The Law of Ukraine "On Effective Management of Property Rights of Copyright Holders in the Sphere of Copyright and (or) Related Rights" came into force.

The law regulates the activities of collective management organizations (CMOs) - a public association with the status of a legal entity to which the subjects of copyright and related rights can transfer their powers to manage these rights, in particular, music, phonograms, videograms.

CMOs can conclude contracts with users on behalf of copyright subjects, agree on the amount of royalties, collect, distribute and pay the collected remuneration. They ensure the protection of musicians, writers and artists intellectual property rights in court, as well as ensure the maintenance of the rights holders register.

At the same time, collective management organizations do not have the right to use objects of copyright and related rights in any way.

Collective management can be voluntary, extended and mandatory.

Voluntary collective management can be carried out in any sphere of rights management, except for those where the expanded or obligatory collective management is carried out.

Extended collective management is carried out in the following areas: public performance and notification of musical non-dramatic works, public performance of phonograms and videograms for commercial purposes.

Mandatory collective management is carried out in the following areas: right to follow with respect to works of fine art; reprographic reproduction of works and their parts (fragments); reproduction of works at home and for personal purposes; cable retransmission of rights objects, except for the rights of broadcasting organizations on their own broadcast programs.

The changes also identified the accreditation procedure for collective management organizations.

Each CMOs has its own specialization and collect funds in a certain field. Therefore, users will know who exactly they have to pay money for using the objects of copyright and related rights. The list of such organizations will be permanently available on the website of the Ministry of Economic Development.

Rightholders can to refuse the services of the CMOs, if they do not correspond to its interests.

The state will monitor the work of the CMOs through analysis of submitted documents, unscheduled inspections and the possibility of applying sanctions in the form of a warning. Failure to comply with the warning may result in the cancellation of the organization registration and accreditation.

In addition, an electronic registration and accounting system for copyright and related rights should be established by July 1, 2019.

The first territorial offices of the State Investigation Bureau were registered

The first territorial offices of the State Investigation Bureau were registered in Kyiv and Kramatorsk, reports the press service of the SIB.

The territorial administration in Kramatorsk will distribute its activities in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Office in Kiev – in Kiev, Cherkasy and Chernihiv regions.

Regional offices in Poltava, Khmelnytsky, Lviv, Nikolaev and Melitopol will also be registered in the coming days.

«Territorial offices will be ready to start work in September», adds the head of the law-enforcement body Roman Truba.

In addition, interviews with candidates for 455 positions are now underway in seven territorial departments. The Internal Commission has elected 14 deputy directors of these departments. They have to go through a polygraph and a special examination by the state authorities.

Then the information about the winners, which the journalists have found, will be analyzed.

After that, a decision will be made to appoint them to the Bureau.