On January 20, a group of national deputies presented draft laws on amendments to Laws of Ukraine “On National Police” and “On National Guard” regarding identification of police officers and soldiers of the National Guard of Ukraine during policing and public security number 5700 and 5701, which were developed with the involvement of the group experts.
Legal regulation of police insignia, that includes a number of a special badge (part 3 article 20 of the Law of Ukraine “On National Police”), faced a problem – figures on badges are too small to read them in a day light and are absolutely unreadable at night. At the same time, in practice, many police officers keep their badges in pockets during the day, what was confirmed by the last “Police under control” monitoring campaign, conducted by the Association UMDPL. Thus badges don’t fulfill its identification function.
Soldiers of the National Guard, who are involved in the public security on peaceful assemblies, don’t have any identification signs at all.
Offered norms:
1) individual number on the badge is easily readable from the distance and is printed in the official identification. In case of wearing body armor – the badge should be attached to the chest area, in case of using some means of protection – a patch should be attached.
2) the same standard (as for the Police) should be applied to units of the National Guard, if they are involved into the public security: badge, number, possibility to identify. Numbers should also be indicated on the means of protection – helmets, shields and flack jackets.
3) all personal numbers are collected in a single data base, which is free to access via the Internet: users can type the number and get full name of the police officer, his/her position, special rank and a mark, that confirms authority of the officer.
Draft law number 5700 on the official web site of the Supreme Council of Ukraine
Draft law number 5701 on the official web site of the Supreme Council of Ukraine
Before registration draft laws were presented to the public and discussed during the round table in the Secretariat of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for human rights with the participation of the National Police and the National Guard representatives. Moreover, endorsement letters regarding draft laws were sent by the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for human rights and General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine.
UPD: Directorate-General of Scientific Expertise (DGSE) of the SCU concluded that both draft laws can be taken into account after the first reading considering all comments and propositions. Conclusions on the draft law number 5700 as of 17.02.2017. Conclusions on the draft law number 5701 as of 16.02.2017.
