The legal department of the UOC commented on the SSU's proposals to ban the Church

The Synodal Legal Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has published a commentary on the draft law No 10126, which is aimed at banning the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This is reported on the website of the department.

«Sufficient necessity for this, according to the authors of the law, is the presence of criminal proceedings against 65 clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It should be noted that we are not talking about legal convictions of the court that have come into force, but simply the presence of the fact of pre-trial investigation. It is not even given here, on what occasion, in respect of any persons, on suspicion of committing any possible offenses, a pre-trial investigation is carried out,» — emphasize the Legal Department.

In this regard, the lawyers of the UOC note that such a position at the level of the subject of legislative initiative looks unconstitutional and illegal.

«In this context, it is necessary to remind all lawmakers of the provisions of Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, according to which a person is considered innocent of committing a crime and cannot be subjected to criminal punishment until his guilt is proven in a lawful manner and established by a conviction verdict of the court, however, apparently, the authors of the bill do not use the norms of the basic law in the course of legislative activity», — the commentary reads.

Summarizing the above, the UOC legal department notes: «The above-mentioned draft law in its existing form can be considered solely as having appeared for the purpose of realizing their own personal interests or in the interests of third parties and contributing to the incitement of hostility and intolerance on religious grounds in Ukraine. and to divide citizens of Ukraine on religious grounds, which violates the legislative prohibition, defined by Article 35 of the Constitution of Ukraine, on the establishment of any advantages or restrictions of one religion, denomination or religious organization in relation to others».