Bills on detective services could reduce the market to only collecting and capturing information, lawyers of Kinstellar law firm – Counsel Iryna Nikolayevska and associate Julia Palaida – have told Interfax-Ukraine, commenting on bill No. 1228 submitted by MP Andriy Kozhemiakin (Batkivschyna parliamentary faction) and alternative bill No. 1228-1 submitted by MPs Mykola Halushko and Viacheslav Medianyk (both from the Servant of the People parliamentary faction).
The lawyers said that at present, the most popular services of private detectives are the search for missing persons, the search for children hidden by one of the spouses, the search for assets of a person in order to recover them, and the verification of the reliability of business partners and employees.
“If regulation of this sphere is introduced in the format proposed by bills No. 1228 and No. 1228-1, the functions of a private detective will actually be reduced to collecting and recording information, since none of these documents authorizes detectives with powers similar to those of law enforcement agencies. Moreover, the bills do not directly regulate the question of how the court should evaluate the evidence collected by the detective, and whether the court will consider it to be appropriate evidence,” the lawyers said.
The Kinstellar law firm experts believe that the information collected by the detective should be regarded as proper evidence (provided there are no violations during the collection).
“It would be nice to clarify the law in this matter,” Nikolayevska and Palaida said.
Moreover, in general, the lawyers consider attempts to regulate the sphere of private investigations to be positive.
