SEP over BES: who will control the Bureau of Economic Security?

MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak informs that the draft law on the Specialized Economic Prosecutor's Office (SEP) has already been registered - No. 11087.

The MP explains what this idea is and why it has appeared at all.

The SEP should become a separate autonomous unit that will carry out procedural supervision in criminal proceedings of the BES. Simply put, it will ensure that the BES's work complies with the law and the rights of legal business.

"It is important to note that we are not creating a new body.

For those who don't know, the Prosecutor General's Office already has a department that deals with this. There are 43 prosecutors and 5 administrative staff working there.

Another 108 employees work in the relevant departments of regional prosecutor's offices. Moreover, more than half of them work in regions where there are no territorial departments of the BES to supervise.

In principle, everything is clear about the (in)effectiveness of supervision. Moreover, business, experts, and internationals are now insisting on rebooting the BES because of its ineffective work and outright harm. But more on that later.

Once again, the BES is not a new additional body. The SEP will allow reorganizing existing prosecutor's offices into a unit independent of political influence.

Recruit really effective people through a competition (from those who already work and new ones, because there is a suspicion that not all current employees, diplomatically speaking, meet the standards of integrity)). And to make sure that the prosecutor's office in economic cases actually works in the interests of legal business," writes Zheleznyak.

The MP also continued to talk about the SEP and the effectiveness of investigations.

"Let's take the exclusive jurisdiction of the BES - Article 212 on tax evasion.

In 2023, 914 criminal proceedings were registered under Article 212. And there are two problems here at once.

First. In 24% of tax evasion proceedings, pre-trial investigations were conducted by other authorities. Although, in fact, this should have been done exclusively by the BES. And it is the prosecutor's office that should have monitored compliance with exclusive jurisdiction.

56 proceedings were closed due to lack of corpus delicti, and only 50 cases were notified of suspicion. It is unclear what is happening with another 808 proceedings, which also does not indicate effective work.

Even international experts, including EUACI, have noted that maintaining the current state of the prosecutor's office could significantly reduce the positive effect of the BES upgrade. Our law will allow recruiting professional staff for the BES, but it is the prosecutor who will make all key procedural decisions.

The Specialized Economic Prosecutor's Office should solve this problem. Prosecutors of the SEP will decide on jurisdiction in disputed situations. In other words, they will guarantee that only one body will actually investigate economic crimes, as it was intended.