Private investigation works "in the shade"
In neighboring Russia, where the profession of private investigator was legalized back in 1992, its representatives are even entitled to carry firearms. In Ukraine, private investigators have to work in the “shadow”, because their activities are still not regulated by law. However, this does not stop them from getting a lot of money from wealthy clients who prefer to unmask their adultery or check the reliability of their business partners without unnecessary publicity. Why does this type of activity remain an unrecognized legislator? Let's try to figure it out.
Unpromising legalization
Understanding all the risks of their so-called illegal activities, private detectives prefer to work undercover. Some enlist the support of law enforcement agencies. Among these private detectives are mostly single detectives who expose unfaithful husbands or wives, tracing missing people or witnesses to traffic accidents. The same detectives who assist business entities in studying the reputation of borrowers or partners, and sometimes finding out competitors' plans or gathering dirt on them, working under the guise of an information and consulting agency. As a rule, they involve journalists or lawyers in cooperation. After all, their status allows you to collect information, send appropriate requests to government agencies and openly conduct investigations, which a private detective cannot afford.
Although, purely from a legal point of view, it can be recognized that not detective activities, but its elements are prohibited in Ukraine. Thus, article 32 of the Constitution prohibits any interference in the personal family life of citizens, and also does not allow the use of confidential information about a person without his consent. This refers to violation of the secrecy of correspondence or other correspondence transmitted by means of communication or through a computer, verification of data specified by someone in an autobiography, and the like. That is why certain types of private detective activity in collecting information and prosecuting individuals are illegal, therefore they are served with sauce, for example, journalism, and sometimes lawyer activities.
In order to prevent the masking of illegal activities of private investigators, in Ukraine they are trying to legalize it. However, to no avail. Since only the bill of the deputy Vladimir Moysik “On private search activity” was repeatedly submitted to the Verkhovna Rada in various convocations, but did not gain the required number of votes. However, its author is convinced that today it is extremely important to regulate the legal status of private detectives. “They need to be taken out of the shadow and taxed,” he explains. - We plan to authorize the Ministry of Justice to issue licenses to private detectives. According to the draft law, we assign the following services to their authority: search, collection, recording of information necessary to protect people's rights and interests of individuals or legal entities, search for persons whose whereabouts are unknown, find out the reasons and circumstances of the disappearance of these persons, search for missing property, protection business entities from illegal collection of information, clarification of the state of the debtor who intends to take a loan, etc. ".
Search activity without a search
In order to realize what was planned, Mr. Moysik, after a failure in the session hall of his first bill, decided to register a new one. At the same time, he actually left his text without significant changes, changing only the title insignificantly. Which is not surprising, since the previous draft law received a positive conclusion from the Main Scientific and Expert Directorate. And this has been happening quite rarely lately. However, when reading the text of the new bill "On private detective (search) activity", the first article raises questions. So, in its third paragraph, it is stated that “subjects of private detective (detective) activity are not entitled to carry out any operational-search measures attributed by law to the exclusive competence of the operational units provided for in article 5 of the Law of Ukraine“ On operational-search activity ”. And this directly contradicts the goal set by the legislator - to give the subjects of private detective activity the rights to search. “After all, operational-search measures are the search not only for criminals, but also for alimony, debtors who hid, or drivers who fled the scene of an accident, as well as many other situations, which include examining various places and objects, eyewitnesses and witnesses, operational face tracing data. If you forbid a private detective to do this, then the law generally loses its meaning, ”said Oleg Parkhomchuk, chairman of the National Bar Association.
It would not be superfluous, in his opinion, to note in the bill the costs that must be allocated from the state budget to ensure the oversight function of observing the law in private detective (detective) activities on the part of the Prosecutor General and prosecutors subordinate to him (Article 26 of the draft law). However, he agrees that the adoption of a law on the legalization of private detectives today is an urgent matter. Indeed, the legislative unsettledness of the Ukrainian market of detective services leads not only to conflicts of the legal plan, but also to conflicts, including between lawyers and law enforcement agencies. In addition, the elementary lack of licensing often leads to the emergence of fraudulent "pseudo-detective" firms aimed at providing illegal services.
However, such an initiative with the official recognition of a private investigation is not supported by law enforcement officers. The reason for this is to provide its representatives with the legal right to bear arms, and this supposedly can completely untie the hands of criminals. Moreover, even the former steering SBU, Valentin Nalyvaichenko, drew attention to the fact that private detectives resort to illegal wiretapping of Ukrainians. So, during one of the SBU operations, a device for monitoring mobile communication channels was withdrawn from employees of a private company, designed to listen to conversations by intercepting signals from a GSM cellular network.
“According to Ukrainian law, only units of the SBU, Foreign Intelligence Services and the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense have the right to use it for special purposes,” explains Nikolai Onishchuk, ex-Minister of Justice. - As well as the right to listen to phones, to view correspondence, which can be granted by the court only in the interests of the investigation. This means that any other agencies, missions, bureaus, firms and firms collecting private information, and even more so secretly observe citizens, is strictly prohibited. Such actions are unlawful and subject to liability, including criminal liability. ”
Commentary by MP Gennady Moskal:
- Private detective work in Ukraine is not needed. This is the sphere of making money. This is a tribute to European fashion, but this does not mean that we should repeat the mistakes of others. Personally, I have a completely negative attitude to detective work. Perhaps in 20 years it will be possible to speak on this subject ... Private detectives are not subjects of operational-search activity. Men who suspect that their wife has a lover, and vice versa, are now resorting to their services. Detectives then, of course, follow ... This is in the films private detectives - brave guys who solve complex crimes. In practice, in Ukraine, the activities of detectives would not have been possible without close ties with police investigators. The state, that is, exclusively the Ministry of Internal Affairs, must take care of the safety and property of citizens! Maybe we’ll make private the police, the SBU or the prosecutor’s office?
Commentary by People's Deputy Nikolai Katerinchuk:
- Legalization of private detectives will help to remove them from the shadow business and oblige them to pay taxes, which will significantly increase revenues to the state budget. Indeed, by their legal nature, detectives are similar to lawyers or notaries, and must have a similar status, appropriate education and training. They cannot disseminate the collected information without the knowledge of customers, and law enforcement agencies cannot search detective agencies and seize materials collected during the work. In addition, it is necessary to take care of the rights of clients of private detective offices, which, like detectives, today are unprotected by law.
Foreign experience
The legal basis for the activities of private detectives in Russia is the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the Law of the Russian Federation “On Private Detective and Security Activities in the Russian Federation” and other laws and legal acts. Being a private, commercial activity, detective activity at the same time successfully combines private and public interests, as it is aimed at creating favorable conditions for the successful implementation of entrepreneurial activity, protecting the rights and legitimate interests of citizens, and cooperating with law enforcement agencies in resolving them tasks. Among the restrictions on the activities of private detectives, there is a ban on investigating particularly serious crimes. Control over their activities in the territory of the Russian Federation is carried out by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, other ministries and departments, and bodies and units subordinate to them.
In the USA, Canada, France and Germany, detectives have legal status. They have special tokens, similar to police, which provide them with the right to collect information for the investigation of certain crimes. In these countries, private detectives are called "reward hunters," because there such fishing is very popular. According to various sources, every tenth US citizen used their services at least once in a lifetime.
The idea of organizing a private investigation in America belonged to Allan Nat Pinkerton. It was he who opened the first private detective agency there, the emblem of which was the image of his eyes wide open, and the motto - "we never sleep." This agency in the mid-19th century became famous not only in the territory between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, but achieved world fame. In the eyes of Europeans, he became synonymous with the American criminal police. A private detective agency, founded by Pinkerton and inherited by his sons, still thrives. Today, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency is one of the largest in the world. It has branches in 48 cities in the United States and Canada.
Alexandra Timoshchuk
03/11/2011
Source -
https://www.konkurssmi.org/