By Alessandra Prentice
KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's plans to force activists and non-governmental organizations to declare detailed financial information are likely to have a chilling effect on civil society, two leading international rights bodies said on Friday.
Ukraine's lawmakers and civil servants must already declare their income and assets in an online database, under a law rolled out in 2016 to tackle corruption in state institutions.
Authorities say regulation is also required to promote transparency in the NGO sector and prevent the pursuit of vested interests through illicit financing.
A law forcing NGOs and activists to file online wealth declarations, like officials, has drawn strong criticism and Kiev has proposed cancelling it. Instead authorities have drafted two laws setting out a different financial reporting rule for NGOs.
But the new drafts have also been criticized in a joint opinion published by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) and the Venice Commission, a body which rules on rights and democracy disputes in Europe. Member states, which include Ukraine, are committed to respecting its decisions.
"The new financial reporting and disclosure regime, if introduced, would conflict with freedom of association, the right to respect for private life and the prohibition of discrimination," the joint opinion said.
The laws "are likely to have a chilling effect on civil society in Ukraine and should be removed in their entirety or significantly narrowed down".
The judgment is its latest in a series of rulings that laws proposed by Ukraine fall short of democratic norms.
It also said Ukraine must follow through on its decision to scrap the requirement for activists to file online wealth declarations.
"It is crucial that Ukraine's plans to cancel the e-declaration requirements for anti-corruption activists, which likewise raise several serious human rights issues, are implemented as a matter of urgency," the joint opinion said.
The next filing deadline for online wealth declarations is April 1. On Thursday, senior presidential official Dmytro Shymkiv urged parliament to cancel the requirement for activists next week.
"The alternative would be the country's shame in the international community from April 1. This is sad and insulting," he said in a post on Facebook (NASDAQ:FB).