A ban on the application of parole to convicted corrupt officials has been introduced.

In accordance with the amendments to Article 72 of the Criminal Code (hereinafter – the Criminal Code), conditional early release (hereinafter – UDO)

is not applied to persons convicted of a serious and particularly serious corruption crime.

There are only two exceptions:

- the commission of such crimes by socially vulnerable citizens (pregnant women; women with young children; men raising young children alone; women aged 58 and over; men aged 63 and above; disabled people of the first and second groups);

- the commission of such crimes by convicted persons who have fulfilled all the conditions of the procedural agreement on cooperation.

Subject to compensation for damages and the absence of penalties in places of deprivation of liberty, these categories of citizens may be released on parole after their actual departure

- at least half of the sentence imposed for a serious corruption crime;

- at least two-thirds of the sentence imposed for a particularly serious corruption crime.

It should be noted that according to the previously existing norms, the above-mentioned socially vulnerable categories of citizens could apply for parole after serving at least one third of the sentence for a serious corruption crime and at least half of the sentence for a particularly serious corruption crime.

That is, the Law has strengthened the responsibility for corruption, even for socially vulnerable categories.

As for persons who have fulfilled all the conditions of the procedural agreement on cooperation, who are eligible for parole, they should not be confused with persons who enter into a plea agreement.

According to article 612 of the CPC, there are two types of procedural agreements:

1) in the form of a plea bargain – for crimes of small, medium gravity or serious crimes - if the suspect, the accused agrees with the suspicion, the charge;

2) in the form of an agreement on cooperation-in all categories of crimes when facilitating the detection and investigation of crimes committed by a criminal group, particularly serious crimes committed by other persons, as well as extremist and terrorist crimes.

The law provides for a provision that allows the use of parole in relation to persons convicted of committing a serious and particularly serious corruption crime, if all the conditions of the procedural agreement on cooperation are met, i.e. the second type of procedural agreement, which can be concluded only on two grounds:

1) in the presence of a qualifying attribute-the commission of a crime in a criminal group (organized criminal group);

2) on particularly serious elements of corruption crimes (according to the Criminal Code - this is part four of Article 366 of the Criminal Code (receiving a bribe in a particularly large amount), part four of Article 367 of the Criminal Code (giving a bribe in a particularly large amount), as well as three elements of military crimes under parts three and four of Article 450, part four of Article 452 of the Criminal Code).