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Question about the refusal from identification numbers will be considered in Parliament

13.04.2004   
Volodymir Yavorskiy, Secretariat of the Council of Ukrainian human rights protecting organizations
Soon the Parliament will consider three law drafts on the introduction of changes to the Law of Ukraine “On State register of physical persons – payers of taxes and other obligatory payments”. The drafts will concern the problem of the refusals of citizens from obtaining the identification numbers because of their religious views. The author analyzes some peculiarities of these drafts.
Soon the Parliament will consider three law drafts on the introduction of changes to the Law of Ukraine «On State register of physical persons –payers of taxes and other obligatory payments». The drafts will concern the problem of the refusals of citizens from obtaining the identification numbers because of their religious views. Now we have the various practices of application of the legal norms by courts and state organs.

The first draft, compiled by MPs B. Bespaly and V. Bondarenko, was registered as early as in July 2003. This draft envisages the right of a citizen to refuse from getting of identification number because of religious or other views. The draft also permits to refuse from the already existing identification number and partly eliminates the procedural obstacles in realization of this norm, in particular, the rule about making the corresponding note in the passport of the citizen.

So, the authors of the draft believe, the necessity exists today to liquidate the obvious inconsistency of the operating version of the Law «On State register of physical persons –payers of taxes and other obligatory payments» and to permit to refuse from identification numbers to people, who did not want to get the number because of their religious or other views, but had to do that being the law-abiding citizens. It would be also taken into account that views can change, so, there is a possibility that those people, who did not protest against the receiving of personal identification number some time ago, would want now to get rid of the number.

Another draft was introduced to the Parliament in October 2003. The draft was created by MPs V. Maystrishin, M. Komar and O. Korsakov. The project denies even the opportunity to refuse from identification numbers, to say nothing about the refusal from the already obtained number.

The argumentation of the authors of the draft is very interesting. They reckon that the amendments, approved by Law of Ukraine No. 1003-XIV of 16 July 1999 contradict the definition of the State register of physical persons-taxpayers as the unified automatized data bank about all taxpayers, as well as Articles 24 and 35 of the Constitution of Ukraine, which read that citizens cannot have any privileges connected with their religious views, and Article 4 of the Law of Ukraine «On the freedom of consciousness and religious organizations», according to which the religious views are not mentioned in official documents.

The authors also believe that the Regulations «On passports of Ukrainian citizens», approved by the Resolution of the Supreme Rada of 25 June 1992, and the Instruction of the Ministry of Interior of Ukraine on the rules and procedure of issuing of the passports of Ukrainian citizens do not envisage any notes in the passport about citizens’ right to make some payments without the identification number.

Besides, the authors point out that the above-mentioned norms contradict the Law of Ukraine «On the taxes levied from profits of physical persons» of 22 May 2003, which came into force on 1 January 2004. According to this Law, the tax credit may be rendered only to a citizen, who has the identification number.

The third draft of 3 February 2004 has been presented recently to the Parliament by MP V. Atroshenko. This draft does not eliminate the certain contradiction existing now in the legislation, but it destroys the procedural obstacle: the draft stipulates the way and form of introduction of necessary data to the passport. Even court decisions are not executed in our country now, since the corresponding state organs do not know what must be written in the passport and on what basis.

The Supreme Rada Committee in charge of finance and bank activities is considering all these drafts.

A short reference: the Law of Ukraine «On State register of physical persons –payers of taxes and other obligatory payments», which was adopted in the end of 1994 and took the effect in the beginning of 1996, envisaged the receiving of identification number by every citizen. In 1999 the Supreme Rada introduced changes into this Law, which changes allowed the people to refuse from identification numbers. However, this amendment may be interpreted in different ways, in particular, in the part concerning the refusal from the already received identification number. The question about the procedure of realization of this clause is also not solved yet.

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