Parliament backs government's "border control" principles

The Verkhovna Rada has ratified the Law "On Border Control," which was submitted by the Yulia Tymoshenko government.

The law identifies the legal framework for border control, procedures and conditions for crossing the state border of Ukraine.

According to the law, passports and other documents of Ukrainian citizens, foreigners and stateless persons who are crossing the state border are checked by authorized officials of the State Border Service of Ukraine to establish that they are authentic and belong to the given person. They also determine the presence or absence of grounds for temporarily refusing a border crossing.

The law also states that while inspecting the documents, the authorized official of the State Border Service of Ukraine is to use tools to identify signs of forgery, search for information in the State Border Service database, amd based on an assessment of risk, question persons who want to cross the state border.

According to the law, passports and other documents are checked at passport control desks, on roads, at border control pavilions, offices, or inside vehicles.