President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky returned to the Verkhovna Rada with his proposals the law on amendments to the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses, the Criminal Code of Ukraine regarding the improvement of responsibility for declaring false information and the entity's failure to submit a declaration of a person authorized to perform t functions of government or local government (bill No. 4651), which parliament adopted on June 3, 2021.

According to the presidential press service, Zelensky initiated this bill to restore punishment in the form of imprisonment for inaccurate declaration.

However, when considering this document in the Verkhovna Rada, the MPs made amendments to the procedure for declaring information about movable and immovable property in the possession or use of the declarant's family members. In accordance with the amendments, such objects are indicated in the declaration if the family members of the declarant submitted the relevant information to him.

Thus, the declarant can be prosecuted only for inaccurate declaration of objects about which family members provided information to him. This provides a legislative loophole for unscrupulous declarants not to indicate in their declarations movable and immovable property owned or used by their relatives, explaining this by the fact that their family members allegedly did not provide them with relevant information about this property.

In view of this, the President of Ukraine returned the law to parliament.

"Criminal liability for inaccurate declaration of information should be quite severe and provide for the possibility of imposing a sentence of imprisonment," Zelensky said.

The introduction of an electronic declaration system was a requirement of the European Union to establish a visa-free travel with Ukraine.

The Venice Commission, in its opinion of May 5, 2021, fully supported the changes initiated by the President to establish punishment for offenses related to declarations, and did not make any comments.