A petition to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy asking him to veto the scandalous draft law No. 12089 has received more than 25 thousand votes, which is necessary for the President to consider it.
The text of the petition, the list of signatories, and the total number of signatures can be found on the corresponding page of the President's official website.
This is a draft law entitled “On Amendments to the Civil Code of Ukraine to Strengthen the Protection of the Rights of a Good Faith Purchaser,” which was actively supported by business representatives, while environmental, monument protection, anti-corruption organizations and ordinary citizens were strongly opposed.
As of the morning of March 31, 25,719 citizens had signed the petition, which was submitted by businessman and former mayor of Hlukhiv Michel Tereshchenko. The required 25 thousand votes were collected in less than 2 weeks.
Screenshot from petition.president.gov.ua.
Why the public opposed the draft law No. 12089
In the text of the petition, the author says that, contrary to the name, the bill is aimed at protecting unscrupulous purchasers, those who illegally, through proxies, acquired private land belonging to the state and territorial communities. According to him, these are forests, water bodies and coastal strips, archaeological sites, defense lands, which can also be forests and lands of the nature reserve fund.
Michelle Tereshchenko notes that such lands are currently returned to the state and territorial communities through the courts. But the draft law No. 12089
- first, it will limit the period during which illegally alienated land can be returned to state and municipal ownership;
- secondly, it will be necessary to reimburse the illegal owners for the market value of such land plots at the expense of the budget.
“Claims for the return of such land will be possible only if their market value is deposited with the court in advance,” the businessman notes.
He cites the data from the Unified Database of Appraisal Reports of the State Property Fund of Ukraine, according to which in 2024 alone the value of the plots for which claims were filed amounted to UAH 407 billion 285 million.
“During the war, budget funds should support the Ukrainian Defense Forces as much as possible, and not be paid to those who illegally obtained land plots in forests and on river banks!” Tereshchenko said.
He also noted that “the provisions of the draft law have retroactive effect, so it will be impossible to return the land that is currently being litigated.”
Among the plots to which the provisions of the draft law No. 12089 may be applied if it is adopted, the businessman named the following
- related to the former Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solsky, whom NABU accuses of participating in a scheme to seize state land worth more than UAH 290 million;
- associated with Denys Komarnytskyi and his associates in Kyiv:
“Large developers involved fictitious enterprises in the schemes to obtain the status of a 'bona fide purchaser', as the defendants themselves openly admit in journalistic investigations,” says Michelle Tereshchenko.
- Before the Revolution of Dignity, Yanukovych's associates stole land for the construction of forests, water bodies, and beaches.
The former mayor of Hlukhiv noted that draft law No. 12089 “violates the Constitution in terms of equality of all forms of ownership, limiting the state and the community's ability to protect their property in court.”
Public authorities agree with the public
In the text of the petition, Michel Tereshchenko reminded that judges of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, experts from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, the Ministry of Justice, the State Agency of Forest Resources, the State Agency of Water Resources, and public activists have officially stated that the draft law in its current version is inadmissible.
This was also stated by Petro Testov, an ecologist and head of the expert department of the Ukrainian Nature Protection Group. He has published letters from the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine, and the State Forestry Agency, in which they justify the inadmissibility of signing the draft law No. 12089 in its current version.
Thus, the Ministry of Environment emphasized that “given the European integration vector of Ukraine's development, the legalization of the withdrawal of objects from state and municipal ownership that should be under special protection actually makes it impossible for Ukraine to implement numerous directives and international treaties in the environmental field.”
The State Agency of Forestry reported that there are currently 113 cases in the courts to reclaim forestry land plots into state ownership, with the State Agency of Forestry as the plaintiff. The agency noted that the new version of part 3 of Article 388 of the Civil Code of Ukraine will not allow the return of forestry land that was illegally withdrawn from state and municipal ownership.
The Ministry of Culture believes that the draft law does not comply with Article 54 of the Constitution of Ukraine, namely the state's obligation to ensure the preservation of historical monuments and other objects of cultural value, and to take measures to return to Ukraine the cultural values of the people that are abroad.
“I don't remember when there was such a united position of public environmental, monument protection, anti-corruption organizations and authorities as there is now with regard to No. 12089. What other arguments do we need against it?” Petro Testov summarized.
On November 20, 2024, the Parliament voted in the first reading for the draft law No. 12089 on strengthening the protection of the rights of a bona fide purchaser, which was previously criticized by representatives of environmental organizations. And on March 12, despite the opposition of activists and the public, 273 MPs supported the bill and passed it.
