The Council of Europe supported the new Civil Code but called to protect journalistic investigations

The Council of Europe provided an important and generally positive legal opinion on the draft of the new Civil Code of Ukraine No. 15150. This was reported by the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk.

According to him, European partners support Ukraine's aspiration to modernize civil legislation. The opinion positively assessed the comprehensive approach to regulating digital rights, as well as the clear distinction between the right of reply and the right to refutation.

“For the digital age, this is a significant step forward,” Stefanchuk noted.

What recommendations did the Council of Europe provide regarding the new Civil Code?

At the same time, Council of Europe experts proposed a number of recommendations for refining the document.

In particular, this concerns the need for additional guarantees for journalistic investigations, OSINT analytics, and anti-corruption control, so that data processing rules do not create obstacles for socially important activities.

Special attention in the opinion was given to the introduction of effective mechanisms to counter SLAPP lawsuits, consideration of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights regarding broader limits of permissible criticism of public figures, as well as ensuring proportionality of methods for protecting violated rights.

According to the parliamentary speaker, the working group is already processing proposals from the media community, experts, and international partners.

“Ahead lies further professional dialogue and consultations with all parties affected by the provisions of the new Code,” he said.

Stefanchuk emphasized that the task of the reform is to create a modern Civil Code that will comply with European standards, protect human rights, and provide proper guarantees of freedom.

More than 15 thousand amendments were submitted to the draft Civil Code

As previously reported by the "Judicial and Legal Newspaper", 15,328 amendments and proposals were submitted to the draft of the new Civil Code of Ukraine No. 15150.

According to Ruslan Stefanchuk, a significant portion of them may be an attempt to block the consideration of the document in the second reading.

He noted that this number of amendments is a record for bills considered by the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy over the last two parliamentary convocations.

For comparison, the previous maximum number of amendments to one bill was about 5 thousand. Thus, the draft of the new Civil Code exceeded the previous record more than threefold.

Attempt to block the consideration of the code

At the same time, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada drew attention to the fact that the draft code itself contains almost 2 thousand articles, so on average there are about 7–8 amendments per article.

According to him, the vast majority of amendments were submitted by three or four members of parliament — both individually and as co-authors.

“It is clear that this is an attempt to block the consideration of the draft in the second reading. In parliamentary terms, this is called a filibuster,” Stefanchuk said.

At the same time, he emphasized that other members of parliament submitted constructive proposals in significantly smaller numbers, which will be considered by the relevant working group.

In addition, according to the parliamentary speaker, work continues with public associations, professional associations, and other communities that expressed their comments on the draft text.

“Some of them are reflected, in particular, in my amendments to the draft Civil Code,” added Ruslan Stefanchuk.

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