The Digitalization of Corruption: How Ukraine’s New Civil Code Could Legalize Stolen Assets
Ruslan Stefanchuk, the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament), has been meeting with representatives of all parliamentary factions to secure support for his sweeping new draft of the Civil Code (Bill No. 14394).
Historically, Napoleon Bonaparte wrote the Civil Code for France, and since then, no one has entirely replaced it—only amended it. According to the Ukrainian academic community, the Head of Parliament has decided he wants to go down in history as a modern Napoleon by rewriting the code entirely.
This initiative is so crucial to Stefanchuk that he personally visited the headquarters of the main opposition party, European Solidarity, to lobby its leader, former President Petro Poroshenko.
Meeting of Stefanchuk and Poroshenko at the “European Solidarity” office
The reform of civil legislation is officially being framed as a necessary step toward European integration. But does the text of the bill actually reflect European values?
After the proposed amendments were registered, Stefanchuk faced a public relations crisis. The bill drew heavy criticism for controversial provisions, including allowing early marriages (from age 14), restricting freedom of speech, and—crucially—creating legal loopholes that could legitimize the theft of state property, such as forests, coastlines, cultural heritage sites, and archaeological monuments.
In response, the Speaker opted for “cosmetic edits” and rapidly resubmitted the draft (Bill No. 15150). The new version is being rushed through parliament in what Ukrainians colloquially call “turbo mode”—a tactic of fast-tracking legislation while bypassing standard procedural rules and debate. Despite rules requiring a committee review at least seven days prior to a plenary vote, this 803-page document, which will impact the property rights of every Ukrainian citizen, is slated for a vote less than a month after its introduction.
During a legal committee meeting, a representative of the Ministry of Justice warned that a document of this magnitude requires weeks of analysis. The previous version alone generated over 200 pages of critical feedback. Civil society organizations have had virtually no time to properly review the text and identify the hidden risks.
The “turbo mode” was temporarily stalled by Nataliia Pipa, an MP from the liberal opposition party Holos (Voice), who submitted an alternative draft. She argued that fundamentally altering the Civil Code requires a nationwide public discussion or even a referendum.
Deputy Minister of Justice Olena Ferens noted that the most controversial section remains Book 9, titled “Publicity of Civil Rights.” The Ministry of Justice previously recommended removing it entirely, but Stefanchuk has insisted on keeping it.
The Ukrainian civic watchdog group Holka analyzed the text and discovered provisions that effectively legalize the plundering of state assets. If parliament passes these rules, returning stolen lands or historical monuments to the public will become legally impossible. In this light, the true motives behind rewriting the 2004 Civil Code become alarmingly clear.
In the explanatory note to her alternative draft, MP Nataliia Pipa highlights these very same risks, noting that they have already drawn criticism from the European Commission and the European Parliament.
Vasyl Krat, a Judge of the Supreme Court in Ukraine’s Cassation Civil Court, warns that public assets—such as the iconic St. Sophia Cathedral or the Klovsk Palace—cannot legally become private property:
Unfortunately, corruption in Ukraine has already seen the coastlines—and even the water area of the Black Sea—transferred into private hands. State cadastral maps sometimes show plots located in the sea, yet their designated land use is absurdly listed as “for construction.” Therefore, given these massive problems with the implementation of protection regimes and the accuracy of state registers, the proposed innovations in the Civil Code look highly suspicious.
Currently, the updated version of the Civil Code (Draft No. 15150) hides an attempt to replace physical reality with a digital forgery: information about historical monuments must be in the registry, otherwise, legally, they do not exist.
The registry is supposed to consolidate data on land-use restrictions and interact with other state databases. Yet, a full two years are allocated just to populate it, which speaks volumes about the critical state of the current data.
Due to the chronic inability of the Ministry of Culture, local councils, and the State GeoCadastre to synchronize their data, a massive number of burial mounds, castle ruins, heritage monuments, and historical areas remain a blank spot legally. This means no registrar or notary will see any obstacle to removing such objects from state or municipal ownership.
For example, according to the Ministry of Culture, there are over 65,000 archaeological monuments in Ukraine, but only 5,000 are recorded in the official land cadastre. The remaining 60,000 are legally vulnerable: in the cadastre, these lands are classified as agricultural or designated for construction.
If Stefanchuk executes his plans, it will nullify the positive judicial practice of the Supreme Court. The plundering of forests and coastlines will be legalized, and monuments absent from the registers will be left without protection.
A buyer will simply be able to state in court: “The monument was not in the registry—therefore, I acted in good faith.” And the court will be forced to accept this.
The draft introduces a “presumption of knowledge of registry records”—and this radically changes the logic for calculating the statute of limitations. Combined with the general provisions on the statute of limitations, the lawmaker creates a mechanism where any illegal registration becomes irreversible after a short period.
Under current legislation and the established practice of the Supreme Court, the statute of limitations begins on the day when a person (including the state or community represented by a prosecutor or relevant authority) learned or could have learned about the violation of their rights. The draft of the new code radically alters this balance. Now, “knowing everything that is in the registry” becomes an obligation. The legislator effectively equates the exact moment a record is entered into the registry with the moment of awareness of a possible rights violation.
This means that as soon as a registrar enters a record transferring a piece of a forest or nature reserve into private ownership, the statute of limitations clock starts ticking. If the state does not spot this amid thousands of other daily manipulations within three years, it permanently loses the right to reclaim the property. Coupled with the state’s chronic inability to promptly respond to such violations, this creates an effect of delayed impunity: illegal decisions do not just go unpunished—they eventually become legally protected.
Such an approach essentially neutralizes the ability to protect state and community interests, as the vast majority of land and property crimes are uncovered years after they are committed. The proposed changes contradict the established practice of the Supreme Court and are aimed at completely undermining it.
But the running of time limits is only one consequence of the presumption of knowledge of registry records. The second, deeper consequence is what happens to rights regarding public property that the state or community simply hasn’t managed to register yet.
The concept of “opposability” (Article 1918), at first glance, looks like a technical legal term. In reality, it completely flips the logic of property rights protection.
Opposability means the ability, thanks to the public nature of registry data, to assert the existence of property rights against third parties. In combination with Article 1919 of Draft No. 15150, this effectively shifts all risks onto the owner: if the right of the state or communities was not publicized in the registry, it cannot be protected against a third party who acted relying on the registry data.
The same applies to private property: if someone fraudulently sells your apartment or land plot that you hadn’t entered into the registry, and the buyer registers themselves, you will not be able to reclaim your property from the person who acted “in good faith.” The maximum you can hope for is financial compensation from the fraudulent seller. Assuming, of course, that you can find them.
For Ukraine, where the process of registering real estate and land has been ongoing since 2013 and is accompanied by errors and incomplete data, such lawmaking creates a systemic risk. A significant portion of restrictions and protection regimes are either not entered into the registry or entered fragmentarily. As a result, massive assets exist de jure, but do not exist in the registry de facto. Consequently, under Stefanchuk’s concept, they will not have full legal protection.
This is especially critical for lands with restriction regimes, particularly coastal protection zones (whose boundaries are often based on outdated documentation without precise digital coordinates) and forestry lands, which can only be plotted on maps. The situation is analogous for historical-cultural lands and nature reserve fund lands: a significant portion of objects are not reflected in the cadastre and legally remain “invisible,” creating prerequisites for the alienation of lands from state or municipal ownership.
Under these conditions, the principle of opposability begins to work against the state and communities: everything not reflected in the registry effectively loses the ability to be protected in relations with third parties. This opens up a simple theft model. The first link is the withdrawal of an object that lacks proper registration. The second is resale and the appearance of a “bona fide purchaser” who formally relies on registry data. This is exactly why the Supreme Court long ago refused to consider a buyer “bona fide” solely based on registry data.
Combined with the limitations on the statute of limitations, this significantly narrows the ability of the state and communities to return assets. Proving that the acquirer knew or could have known about the illegality will become much more difficult given the expanded definition of their good faith.
The evaluative nature of this concept in the proposed wording risks turning trials into a formal procedure where all facts fade into the background, and the only key factor becomes the existence of a property right record in the registry. This directly contradicts the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, which has repeatedly noted that a person cannot be considered a bona fide purchaser if they knew or could have known about a violation of the property realization procedure or knew or could have known about acquiring property contrary to the law.
The Main Scientific and Expert Directorate of the Verkhovna Rada confirms this: the proposed norms allow owners to be stripped of their property through its acquisition by a bona fide purchaser, which violates the Constitution, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
Relevant authorities are also paying attention to systemic risks. The Head of the State GeoCadastre, Dmytro Makarenko, notes:
Ultimately, the registry transforms from an accounting tool into a legalization tool: it is not that what is legal gets entered into it, but what gets entered acquires the characteristics of legality.
If you study judicial practice, the true purpose behind the “turbo mode” becomes clear. Over the past few years, the Supreme Court has waged a difficult but consistent battle to return stolen forests, coastlines, and cultural heritage sites to the state and communities.
For instance, in March of this year, the Grand Chamber once again upheld its position on the enhanced protection of state and municipal ownership rights to cultural heritage sites and historical-cultural lands (Case No. 922/264/24).
Screenshot from the Facebook post of Grand Chamber Judge Oleh Tkachuk
This legislative initiative looks like a response by lobbyists to these successes in the work of the third branch of government. They have decided to “nullify” them at the legislative level. This creates a direct institutional conflict: the court forms a practice of returning illegally alienated property, while the legislator tries to make such decisions impossible or legally meaningless in favor of illegal land grabs.
The so-called “Mazepa Law” (named after a prominent businessman) previously envisioned limiting the abilities of the state and communities to sue for their property after it was seized by private individuals.
However, the Supreme Court formed a different practice. But the new code goes further: if a bad-faith buyer manages to enter the property into the registry via a “black registrar” (corrupt notary), the state and communities lose the right to sue altogether, with no statute of limitations. “Ihor Mazepa’s Law” at least gave 10 years. Stefanchuk’s code gives zero.
If water fund lands or nature reserves could not legally be privately owned at all, then the “good faith” of the buyer is not grounds for legalizing their acquisition. A buyer cannot be considered bona fide if they purchase a plot on a riverbank or in the middle of a forest, even if it is listed in the registry as agricultural land or land for construction. The physical characteristics of the object matter and must be taken into account.
The draft of the new Civil Code is aimed at breaking this logical approach. MPs, knowing about the registry’s gaps, propose making the registration of rights “virtually irrefutable.” This is an attempt, on the one hand, to deprive judges of the right to internal conviction and analysis of the circumstances of a case, forcing them to look exclusively at data from the registry. And on the other, to create grounds for the rapid legalization of stolen goods and new criminal schemes. Such absurdity exists in no European country!
By establishing overly rigid and detailed criteria for good faith, the legislator is trying to create a situation where any lawsuit by the state, community, or prosecutor to return a monument, coastline, or forest will be dismissed by the court as one that “violates the principle of legal certainty” and the “expectations of the acquirer.”
This is not about individual norms, but about a change in state policy: from one that allows the protection of rights to public things—to one that, contrary to common sense, legalizes private ownership of property that could never become private. If the Verkhovna Rada votes “for,” returning stolen forests, coastlines, and monuments through the court will become legally almost impossible. Not because the law forbids it. But because it will make the theft legal.
Written specifically for “Dzerkalo Tyzhnia” (Mirror of the Week).
