Amid the recent news of personnel reshuffles in the Government, including the dismissal of the heads of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food and the Ministry for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine, people are talking a lot about what is happening behind the scenes. However, very little is said about the aspects that shape the presentation, communication, and, ultimately, decision-making on important state issues.

Executive Director of the ALI Svitlana Matviienko spoke on the air of Radio Svoboda about the format of decision-making on personnel changes, their communication, and what society should pay special attention to in these processes:

So, no ministerial term, especially during a full-scale war, has ever gone perfectly. However, given the current personnel hunger and the reluctance of people to take up leadership positions, decisions to fire certain individuals seem somewhat unreasonable.

At the same time, you can decide whether the proposal to separate the ministries (of infrastructure and communities and territories development) again aligns with the Government’s idea of optimising ministries in general by reading the Agency’s latest article here.

The text was prepared for Ukrainska Pravda

The state should take care of veterans, or veterans will take care of the state (not in the good sense of this expression) – this and similar thoughts are often heard during discussions of the future of veteran policy.

According to modest estimates, veterans and their family members will make up at least 10% of the population of Ukraine. But is Ukraine ready to face millions of veterans who will return from the front?

The basic law of veteran policy is the Law “On the Status of War Veterans, Guarantees of Their Social Protection”. It is this law that defines who are veterans and what benefits they receive.

This is a 1993 law, and it generally focuses on veterans of Soviet-era wars. Of course, this approach is outdated for modern conditions and needs to be reviewed and updated.

To understand to what extent the 1993 law does not correspond to modern realities, let us give two examples.

According to the law, veterans are participants of various wars and military operations, among which there are many non-obvious, at first glance, groups of people.

Thus, partisans and guerrillas of the Civil (1917-1921) and Second World Wars are considered veterans. A separate question is: who are the partisans and guerrillas of the civil war – Red Army soldiers or soldiers of the Ukrainian People’s Republic?

Participants of military operations of the USSR abroad are also veterans by law. The Cabinet resolution of 1994, which lists such operations, is valid and very interesting. There are a total of 47 military operations of the USSR since 1924. Among them are the civil wars in Spain (1936-1939) and China (1924-1949, with interruptions), the Korean War (1950-1953), the suppression of the Hungarian revolution (1956) and of the Prague Spring (1968), etc. Soviet soldiers who took part in these combat operations are considered veterans who have the right to receive benefits in Ukraine.

According to the law, veterans are the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and NKVD soldiers who fought against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Those who fought for the independence of Ukraine and those who fought against it. In the language of the law, it is called “liquidation of subversive-terrorist groups, banditry in 1944-1951 on the territory of Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia.”

And what do veterans of all these wars (as well as veterans of the modern Russian-Ukrainian war) get? They receive benefits – benefits that were prescribed 30 years ago.

The list of these benefits includes, among other things, a discount on the installation of a home phone or the right to provision of food products of an improved assortment. Let’s remember that there was a shortage of goods in the USSR, so next to ordinary stores, where there was almost nothing, there were stores of an improved assortment.

Why are these parts of the legislation still unchanged after general decommunization, revision of historical, symbolic and humanitarian policies? Because the law has not been changed.

Why has the law not been changed? It is quite possible that the reason lies in inattention or incomplete processing, but there are also deeper reasons for this at the constitutional level.

While policy changes for veterans are important, they are not easy to achieve. In its practice, the Constitutional Court has repeatedly issued judgments (judgments of 2004, 2004, 2002, 1999) in favor of preserving the current model. For example, the judgment in the case regarding the social protection of veterans in 2018.

In the same year, a law was declared unconstitutional, according to which a veteran should not receive statutory benefits if the income of the veteran and their family exceeds a certain level. Benefits, in this case, are free medicines, a discount on utility services or other less popular benefits.

The Constitutional Court decided that “restriction or cancellation of such benefits and other guarantees of social protection is possible only in case of introduction of equivalent or more favorable conditions of social protection”, and “the provision of benefits (…) should not be conditioned by the lack of financial capabilities of the state”.

In other words, benefits and other social guarantees can only be increased but not reduced in any way. And the provision of these benefits and social guarantees must be fulfilled, regardless of whether the state has money for this or not. If the state does not have the money for this, does not fulfill the relevant social obligations, then the current government violates the Constitution in terms of protecting the rights of citizens.

The debate about how justified and fair this approach is, or to what extent this position is a Soviet legacy and a manifestation of state paternalism, has been smoldering without much result and excessive public attention for already a long time. However, there are specific and quite negative consequences of such a position, when unscrupulous politicians make advances to citizens with the prospect of increasing social guarantees.

To put it simply, any populist majority in the Verkhovna Rada can add new and new benefits, which are not justified financially in any way, in order to receive short-term electoral dividends. But it is impossible to cancel these benefits.

Even a deep reform with the introduction of equivalent conditions of social protection is risky because, at an appropriate moment, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine may be asked whether these conditions are equivalent or whether they are a limitation/cancellation of social protection. And the Constitutional Court can then cancel such reform. And this is a big challenge for any attempts to reform the state policy regarding veterans.

For example, targeted social support, where a veteran receives assistance according to his needs, is not possible in such conditions. It is also impossible to review the list of old benefits or deprive the veterans of the NKVD of benefits. But veteran policy is not only about veterans of the NKVD.

According to some estimates, there will be about 5 million veterans and their family members in Ukraine. It means that the veteran policy will concern every seventh citizen of Ukraine. The 1993 legislation will need to be reformed. It was created for pensioners who went through the Second World War, and now the vast majority of veterans and their family members will be people of working age.

Finding legal ways to resolve this situation is an urgent task for Ukraine. Another urgent task is a public debate about what veterans’ policy should and should not consist of. However, talking about it is not enough. It is necessary to already make changes to already start forming a new policy. After all, the longer we drag out this process, the harder it will be for us to integrate the veterans when they return home.

The text was prepared with the financial support of Sweden.

By the Agency for Legislative Initiatives for the Decentralisation portal

The introduction of a system to supervise the legality of local self-government bodies’ (LSGBs’) decisions is a vital stage in the decentralisation reform. Although this issue was put on the agenda back in 2015, when the reform was just unfolding, it is still to be resolved.

In 2020, the Verkhovna Rada registered draft law No. 4298 on Amending the Law on Local State Administrations and some other legislative acts of Ukraine to reform the territorial organisation of executive power in Ukraine and passed it in the first reading. However, Russia’s full-scale invasion into Ukraine delayed the consideration of this draft law since all efforts have focused on regulating military issues in the legal framework. So, what is supervision of the legality of LSGBs’ decisions, and why is important for continuing the decentralisation reform? We will tell further.

Decentralisation as a reform of democratic governance concerns transferring most of the powers to the local level to specific communities. Accordingly, the effective implementation of the reform cannot occur without the interaction of public authorities and local self-governments since all levels of authorities constitute a single system of public bodies that govern society. It is quite sensible when the state responds to potential violations at any level of government. For example, they include illegal decisions that threaten Ukraine’s sovereignty or decisions that do not fall into the scope of constitutionally enshrined powers. To that end, a system is established to supervise the legality of decisions.

There is a legislated system of administrative supervision in European countries that have successfully implemented decentralisation reforms. These are France, Germany, Denmark, Italy, and others. Naturally, there is no universal model of how supervision should take place or how state and local authorities should interact. Each country builds up its line depending on the model of local self-government, the form of government, political system, the capacity of communities and/or regions. The number of supervising institutions (one or more), subordination of the supervisory institution (to a central body or regional body), the authorities of the supervisory institution (go to court, suspend LSGBs’ decisions, overturn decisions, impose sanctions, recommend to change/improve acts that enact the decisions) depend on these factors.

Administrative supervision aiming to ensure legal compliance is also spelled out in the European Charter of Local Self-Government (Article 8). No provision of the Charter obliges central authorities to set up a vehicle for administrative supervision (including one for supervision of legality), but according to the Council of Europe’s findings, Ukraine is the only European country that has not legislated a system to supervise local self-government bodies.

In Ukraine, until 2016, the role of the “watchdog” over the legality of LSGB’s decisions was performed by the prosecutor’s offices, then the reform of the prosecutor’s office largely narrowed their powers. And as the positions of stakeholders (representatives of local self-government bodies, central authorities) confirm, the reform of the prosecutor’s offices is advantageous for decentralisation, given that supervision was carried out by the prosecutor’s offices chaotically and unsystematically, oftentimes the prosecutor’s offices used the supervisory function as a manipulative tool, which elevated corruption risks.

Thus, in 2016, a ‘legal vacuum’ was created and still exists in the system to supervise the legality of decisions. The lack of a regulated system for interaction between state and local authorities results in the following problems:

1. The risks of state authorities’ excessive interference into the work of local self-government bodies elevate;
2. The probability of illegal decisions being made at the level of local self-government bodies increases.

In general, the supervision system defines a procedure to monitor local self-government bodies’ decisions and respond to those that are illegal or do not comply with the Constitution of Ukraine. Examples include violations of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the language agenda, cooperation with the aggressor state, etc. Supervision of the legality of decisions does not concern control over the activities of local self-government bodies and the expediency of decision-making. In other words, it is for the community to resolve independently the issues of local importance (dealing with land, provision of necessary services, infrastructure and urban development, etc.).

Regulation of the system to supervise the legality of local self-government bodies’ decisions has been debated since 2015. It was then that changes dealing with decentralisation were proposed to the Constitution of Ukraine, with the institution of the prefect being put forward. This institution was supposed to represent the state on the ground. However, the process of consideration of the draft halted in the first reading. Moreover, it led to human casualties near the Verkhovna Rada. The draft norm on the “peculiarities of exercising local self-government in certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions” caused protests.

The second attempt at changes focused on decentralisation was made in 2019. The first version of the Presidential proposals was immediately criticised because the spelt-out powers of prefects were too broad. In 2020, a second set of amendments to the Constitution was ironed out at the central and regional levels, and discussions lasted in the expert community. That draft was finalised, a political consensus was reached eventually, and international partners responded positively to it. However, under martial law now, these Constitutional amendments dealing with decentralisation may not be approved at the national level.

The only and transitional solution to the problem is the adoption of a draft law that would legislate the issue of supervising the legality of decisions. In 2020, draft law No. 4298 On Amending the Law of Ukraine on Local State Administrations and some other legislative acts of Ukraine to reform the territorial organisation of executive power in Ukraine was registered, which provides a vehicle for supervision until the Constitution is amended.

The draft law proposes to consolidate prefectural powers within local state administrations (regional and district ones), which are local executive bodies. It stipulates two prefectural tools for local state administrations to ensure the legality of the decisions:

1. A demand to eliminate a violation of legality;
2. Going to court with a claim to invalidate an act of the local self-government body.

That is, where local self-government bodies have failed to satisfy the demand to eliminate the violation of legality, the local state administrations will have the right to sue.

The lawmakers propose the following system of supervision: a regional state administration supervises the legality of the decisions of district councils, and a district state administration supervises those of village, town and city councils. Furthermore, local self-government bodies are given the opportunity to receive advice from the local state administration. That is, the supervision system would act as a preventive mechanism, since the advice-seeking possibilities would minimise the risks of making illegal decisions.

Currently, the ultimate version of the draft law is being finalised in a parliamentary committee. Its adoption in the near future is expected to legislate the system of supervision of the legality of local self-government bodies’ decisions.

Representatives of local self-government bodies and experts note that establishing a clear system of supervision will be able to solve the following problems:

1. Abuse of powers and making illegal decisions at the local level.
2. Uneven distribution of functions at different levels of government. This concerns the work of regional and district state administrations, whose tasks currently overlap.
3. Regional administrations’ interferences in the work of local self-government bodies. Until now, in some communities, representatives of the regional state administration try to maintain powers on the ground, centrally manage the distribution of funds and influence the community’s decisions on the implementation of projects.

This is why a transparent and clear system should be set up to supervise the legality of decisions and the on-the-ground interaction of state authorities with local self-government bodies should be established. This framework should be based on the following pillars:

Transparent judicial procedure. This refers to fair justice when a decision on the illegality of the LSGB’s act will accord with all constitutional norms and not the standpoints of some individuals.

There should be the right to appeal. The entities should be designated to respond to alleged violations and submit complaints to court. These entities should promptly respond to specific issues associated with the sovereignty and state integrity of Ukraine, and judicial bodies should quickly overturn the acts in question.

The system of supervision should be accessible and informative for all those living in the community. All entities, including businesses, should be informed about the system of supervision, its necessity and the consequences of making illegal decisions. The community manages its areas, but oftentimes decisions are made in the interests of specific individuals, not of the community as a whole (for example, some land is allocated for the construction of a church building, yet a multi-story building emerges as a result). Thus, all the entities concerned should be held accountable for illegal schemes.

Illegal decisions are to be overturned by judicial bodies rather than heads of state administrations. Local state administrations’ devotion and loyalty to some communities can affect their decisions in monitoring LSGBs’ acts. Therefore, heads of state administrations can suspend illegal decisions and give recommendations, communities can review them, but only judicial bodies may overturn them.

Supervision should remain at the level of regional administrations. This is argued by the need to select supervisory bodies according to certain procedures that will establish their expertise and integrity. From this perspective, it would be more rational to select and train 24 heads of administrations than to spend resources on creating supervisory bodies also in each district (there is an average of 5 districts in each region). This is important for supervisory bodies not to be pro forma, dual superstructures, but rather effectively fulfil their functions. Instead, today district administrations are some sort of branches of the regional state administrations, and their functions overlap. Furthermore, experts note that the district state administrations can serve as a tool for the regional state administrations, and there is a risk that the latter would expand their might locally and continue the old practice that prevailed before the consolidation of communities.

The possibility for local self-government bodies to seek advice. There should be a clear timeframe for potential errors to be corrected at the level of LSGBs in case illegal decisions are found. This includes the possibility to seek advice where local self-government bodies have that need. Decisions should be overturned if comments/recommendations have not been taken onboard.

Introduce categories of decisions to be overturned on the day of their adoption. This is important for the state security of Ukraine. Those categories should deal with such issues as separatism, collaborationism, the agenda of the state language, national borders, etc.

It is necessary to categorise and systematise the areas of decisions that are to be checked. This is because there is an environmental office, a tax office, which also supervise. In addition, there is a treasury body that checks documents regarding budget funds and legislative requirements.

A certain level of expertise should be ensured for monitoring and assessing LSGBs’ decisions. When the prefect supervises, candidates for their office should be assessed for the availability of necessary skills as part of the selection process. The prefecture must have a scientific and advisory board that will analyse the decisions for their compliance with the law.

Clear grounds should be prescribed for supervision and monitoring of decisions. This is necessary in order to avoid usurpation of power by the administrations on the ground, as there are risks that the administration would abuse the powers and review LSGBs’ decisions of the prior years, trying to deliberately hold a certain community accountable.

So, a clear system to supervise the legality of decisions is both a vehicle to prevent violations locally and a protection for local self-government bodies. Stakeholders are on the same page that, first, the supervision will be sending a message both to the representatives of local self-government bodies and to the supervisory authorities. This is because the responsibility of all bodies in case of malicious violations will be clearly established. Second, the system of supervision will minimise the risks of corruption and illegal decision-making by local self-government bodies. After all, the representatives of LSGBs will have a chance to receive advice from the supervisory authorities.

For the local state administrations as a supervisory body, the system of supervision is, on the one hand, an understanding that their functions are primarily of supervisory and control nature. On the other hand, the fact that they are civil servants, representatives of the state, and not of a political force. Responsibility would be introduced for interference into the work of local self-government bodies. On Ukraine’s path to the EU, the establishment of such norms is relevant and important from the perspective of the fight against corruption.

In general, most of the standpoints expressed by the stakeholders are spelled out in the current version of draft law No. 4298, including the possibility of advice and recommendations for LSGBs, decisions overturning in court, the designated supervisory body (in this case, it is the local state administration). As a result, this means that the draft law is vital for the public.

However, some of its parts need to be refined, especially so the issue of professionalisation of the supervisory body, which, among other things, was emphasised by the stakeholders. Assessing the compliance of local self-government bodies with laws and the Constitution requires an appropriate level of expertise.

Analysis methodology

This research was conducted in two phases:

1st phase – legislation and legislative initiatives, international documents (Constitution of Ukraine, Law on Local Self-Government in Ukraine, Law on Local State Administrations, draft law No. 4298 on Amending the Law of Ukraine on Local State Administrations and Some Other Legislative Acts of Ukraine to Reform the Territorial Organisation of Executive Power in Ukraine, European Charter of Local Self-Government) were analysed; secondary sources of information were analysed regarding international experiences with the system of supervision of the legality of LSGBs’ decisions.

2nd phase – semi-structured in-depth interviews were held with 12 LSGBs’ representatives (heads of city, town and village councils), 7 experts (MPs, experts in various fields of the decentralisation reform).

This material was prepared with the financial support of Sweden.

Agency for Legislative Initiatives for “Dzerkalo Tyzhnia” (Mirror Weekly).

Since the morning of 24 February and until now, the Verkhovna Rada — Ukraine’s only legislative body — has continually been exercising its powers in Kyiv, despite the high threat of physical destruction. The constitutional majority of MPs are in Ukraine. Laws are passed. The state is functioning.

Fortunately, it is the first time that the Ukrainian Parliament is going through the unique experience of functioning in a full-scale war. How exactly does the Verkhovna Rada operate with martial law and the real threat of missile strikes being in place? The Agency for Legislative Initiatives analysed the work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine during six months of the war — from 24 February to 6 September (this is part of the seventh session that was taking place when martial law was in effect). Presented below are our brief findings.

Speed, consensus, and efficiency are the three words that can be used to characterise the operation of the Parliament during the war. On the one hand.

During the six months of the war, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine accomplished a lot of work indeed. It did so much as to set a record in terms of the number of laws passed in one session. From the beginning of the full-scale invasion until 6 September, 229 laws were passed. This is more than in any other session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine across all convocations (for which data is available).

Why so many, and what are those laws? The lion’s share goes for the laws that govern life in a country during wartime.

The invasion brought to nought a large part of the prior agenda. Since 24 February, a need has emerged to urgently adjust the legislation to the realities of the full-scale war. Relevant laws were developed and passed almost from scratch, and very rapidly.

National security, reallocation of funds, law enforcement and support of the economy became the priority needs and areas of work of the Verkhovna Rada.

During half a year of the full-scale war, the President in fact transferred the law-making role within development internal policies to the Government and MPs. The draft laws submitted by the President during this period were exclusively ratifications, presidential decrees and symbolic law drafts related to the issues of foreign policy, security and defence (which, by the way, clearly corresponds to the distribution of powers under the Constitution).

Half a year of the war can also be called a real “turbo mode”. In addition to the record-setting numbers of passed laws, we see a significant decrease in the time spent on processing and clearing draft laws across all indicators. Parliamentary committees, expert and analytical departments of the Parliament mobilised resources and quickly issued opinions. The processes of political approval of draft laws were also significantly accelerated, and a long-term consensus was in place among MPs in the session hall. Everyone worked in harmony, to the extent possible, and made efficient use of available time and other resources.

Interesting data about plenary time is in our possession: half of the draft laws passed in the first reading were considered for less than 41 seconds; 90% of the draft laws in the first reading were considered by MPs for less than two minutes; half of all the draft laws that were passed in both readings during half a year of the war were considered by lawmakers in the session hall for less than six minutes.

Just to compare: In the last pre-war, sixth session of the Verkhovna Rada, these time indicators were many times higher: half of the draft laws passed in the first reading were considered for up to 15 minutes in the hall; up to 26 minutes of plenary time was taken up by consideration of half of the draft laws that went through both readings during the sixth session.

In fact, for half a year of the full-scale war, what MPs in the Parliamentary Hall did was only press voting buttons – with no scandals, long speeches from the lectern and fights, as it used to be before. This “phenomenal occurrence” can be explained by the following three factors:

1. Political consensus was in place — especially so on the issues of defence and security — as well as the need to immediately respond to the realities of a full-scale war;
2. Threat to the security of MPs during the sittings of the Verkhovna Rada — Russia has repeatedly “promised” strikes on “centres of decision-making”;
3. No online broadcasting for sittings, and thus no need to deliver lengthy speeches targeting voters.

But work efficiency does not equal quality. The new realities of the war and the “turbo mode” resurrected old “bugs” in the law-making system and created new ones.

When lots of laws are passed quickly, the quality of the decisions themselves will suffer, and a certain part of the procedures will be ignored.

A draft law is a crucial document, which, when approved, will determine how the state and citizens shall function in a given area. Before the draft law gets to the session hall, it must be processed at least by the committees and expert departments of the Verkhovna Rada. MPs should familiarise themselves with the text of the draft law and supporting documents. All these procedures are required to ensure at least some quality control of what the lawmakers press the voting buttons for in the session hall, and to shield against hasty and poor (populist, undemocratic or ill-considered) decision-making.

However, with the war being in place, very little time passed from the emergence of an idea to the adoption of laws. Over the six months of the full-scale war, lots of draft laws appeared that were adopted “on the fly”: five draft laws were adopted on the day of registration; 12 more — the following day after registration. Most draft laws (59%) became laws after the first reading.

That said, an opposite trend was in place during the previous two sessions, as two-thirds of the laws were adopted in the second reading. In practice, two readings make it possible to prepare the draft law better, to address shortcomings and errors discovered in the first reading. However, two readings also require more time, which was obviously not available in view of the invasion. Can we be confident that they are all well written and analysed, or at least read? No. Do we know how these decisions will affect the country in the future, especially after the end of the war? This cannot be assessed at this time.

The need to adjust the law-making process to the conditions of martial law created another unusual parliamentary practice, i.e., “matryoshka laws”. These are several laws with different subject matters of regulation, and contents are disguised under one title. Usually, such laws have one content and targeting at the stage of the first reading. Yet then amendments are introduced to them, and in fact, they are supplemented with brand-new provisions that were not only beyond consideration in the first reading but also belong to a different area of regulation.

For example, the Law on Amending Certain Laws of Ukraine regarding the Functioning of the Civil Service and Local Self-Government During the Effectiveness of Martial Law. Its first reading version dealt with the distribution of powers between local self-government bodies and military administrations. Yet at the stage of amendments for the second reading, provisions were added to expand the powers of the Verkhovna Rada and the President. Among other things, based on these new norms, the Verkhovna Rada’s Ombudsperson, Lyudmila Denisova, was dismissed. The new provisions added for the second reading not only related to a completely different topic, but also violated the Constitution, as they expanded the powers of the Verkhovna Rada and the President.

A reminder is that new powers of the Verkhovna Rada and the President may come into being only through amendments to the Constitution, which is prohibited under martial law. Yet the Ukrainian lawmakers ignored the said norm, and this is no singular case during half a year of the war.

Another factual violation of the Constitution is the President’s failure to sign the adopted law drafts within the prescribed 15-day period. This practice existed also before the full-scale invasion, and not only under President Zelenskyi. However, it is particularly visible now — for example, by the beginning of September, more than two dozen draft laws neither signed nor vetoed by the President had accumulated. They have been in limbo for months and do not come into effect. There are no obvious reasons for this phenomenon.

They include:

1. The draft Law on Amending Article 3 of the Law on Some Issues of Indebtedness of Defence-Industrial Complex Enterprises that Are Members of the State Concern ‘Ukroboronprom’ and Ensuring Their Stable Development.
2. The draft Law on Amending Article 23 of the Law on Mobilisation Training and Mobilisation regarding the postponement of military service conscription of scientific, scientific-pedagogical, and pedagogical staff during the mobilisation.
3. The draft Law on Amending Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine to Improve the Fundamentals of Organisation and Conduct of the Resistance Movement.
4. The draft Law on Amending the Law on the Basic Principles of Expropriation of Objects of Property Rights of the Russian Federation and Its Residents in Ukraine regarding the itemisation of certain provisions.
5. The draft Law on Amending Certain Laws of Ukraine to Improve the Selection and Training of Prosecutors.

Along with violations of the Constitution, other deviations from the rules do not seem to be so significant, although there were lots of them too. During half a year of the war, up to 67% of the laws (that is, two-thirds) were adopted with violations of the consideration procedures. For the most part, those were violations of deadlines and the lack of required opinions on the draft laws from the Verkhovna Rada’s expert and analytical departments.

In summary, the full-scale invasion did raise many pressing issues, so a significant number of procedural violations are justified, given the situation at hand. Yet this is no adequate practice in the long run.

Currently, an urgent need arises to hammer out special procedures that would enable the legitimate and fast processing and passing of draft laws in conditions of war or other extraordinary circumstances requiring rapid and, at the same time, legal decisions. A clear algorithm of actions is required to ensure the adequate operation of the system, so that the functioning of the Parliament and the entire state in war conditions be not a miracle in which few people believed, but a regularity in the eyes of citizens, international partners and the enemy.

After the abolition of martial law, the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers, with the involvement of civil society experts, will need to take a stock of the hastily adopted laws in order to eliminate any possible negative aftermaths for the period of peaceful life.

The election race in Ukraine is over, but the newly elected MPs and the president have no time to relax. The hardest part is ahead.

During the broadcast on the 5 Channel, the Chairwoman of the Council of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives Svitlana Matvienko has discussed what kind of challenges await the new authorities and how not to lose the achievements of the past and increase them in the future.

According to Svitlana, after the elections, Ukraine is in a situation of fragile stability. Therefore, in order to establish the subjectivity of Ukraine on the international arena, the new authorities must continue to stick to the line they have defended before – that means not to talk about Ukraine without Ukraine and not to hide the truth about the war. The rhetoric with international partners should remain unchanged, no matter what kind of agenda may be beneficial for them.

“Representatives of civil society and journalists should keep an eye on what’s going on. The new government has received a huge package of trust, but it means only one thing – the people in Ukraine have completely transferred the responsibility for everything that is happening in the country to one person,” – Svitlana said.

At the same time, the Chairwoman of the Council stressed that Ukrainians are expecting changes from the new president and the Verkhovna Rada in a short time. Therefore high-ranking officials should be prepared for serious challenges and risks.

The debate was broadcast live on the RADA TV channel, which made it possible to engage a wide range of viewers of the RADA TV channel as well as the online audience to discuss the topic of parliamentary reform. Besides, the Facebook page of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives invited to take part in a survey on key issues of parliamentary reform through online voting.

The event was organized by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives within the framework of the USAID RADA Program: Responsible, Accountable, Democratic Assembly implemented by the East Europe Foundation.

Moderator: Oleksandr Zaslavskii, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives.

Speakers:

• MP Olena Sotnyk, member of the parliamentary faction of the political party Samopomich (Self Reliance), secretary of the VRU Committee on European Integration;
• MP Yuriy Miroshnychenko, member of the parliamentary faction of the political party Opozytsiynyi Blok (Opposition Bloc), Chairman of a Subcommittee of the Committee on Legislative Support of Law Enforcement.

Experts:

• Yuriy Hanuschak, MP of Ukraine of the 6th convocation;
• Volodymyr Kryzhanivsky, MP of Ukraine of the 1st convocation, Senior Advisor to the USAID RADA Program.

The debate focused on discussing specific proposals outlined in the Roadmap on Internal Reform and Capacity-Building for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine prepared by the European Parliament’s Needs Assessment Mission led by Pat Cox.

There are a number of challenges that hinder the effective work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. From October 2015 through January 2016, the European Parliament’s Needs Assessment Mission led by Pat Cox was working in the Verkhovna Rada to identify and analyze these challenges. Based on this work, the Mission drafted the Report and the Roadmap on Internal Reform and Capacity-Building for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. On March 17, 2016, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a Resolution based on this document, which contains 52 recommendations on improving the work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as regards institutional capacity, improving the quality of the legislative process, ensuring compliance of legislation with EU regulations, etc. Since then, a number of legislative initiatives have been registered to implement the relevant recommendations, which, however, have not been adopted, not even as a basis. A year ago, the Working Group on Parliamentary Reform was established under the leadership of the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; its task is to ensure coordination of the positions of parliamentary factions on specific decisions in the process of implementation of the 52 recommendations. Besides, there is an additional platform for finding a political compromise – i.e. the Monnet Dialogue Platform.

The first set of issues discussed by MPs and experts concerned the organization of the process of discussing and aligning political decisions on parliamentary reform and search for a political compromise. Another important aspect concerned the issue of how effective this process is.

The second set of issues focused on the bills approved within the framework of the working group and the Monnet Dialogue Platform. These are the Draft Law “On Amendments to the Laws of Ukraine “On Committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine” and “On Central Executive Bodies” regarding the optimization of the work of the committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and relation between their areas of competence and the ministries’ fields of activity.

This bill was drafted in pursuance of recommendation 17 of the Roadmap stipulating the need to strengthen the monitoring role of committees due to improved communication with specialized committees. Yet, why has it not been approved? Do the provisions set in the bill comply with the recommendations? To what extent can this bill solve the problem described in the Roadmap?

The third set of issues focused on the problem of the “legislative tsunami” or, to use parliamentarians’ term, “legislative spam”, which the European Parliament’s Assessment Mission recognized to be a major problem of the Parliament’s work. This term is used to describe the huge number of legislative initiatives registered by MPs that become a burden for the expert departments of the Secretariat, for the parliamentary committees and Parliament as a whole. Accordingly, recommendation 6 of the Roadmap stipulates that 20 top-priority legislative initiatives of MPs should be selected and considered based on the “float principle” – i.e., Parliament will go on to consider the next parliamentary initiative only after adoption of one of these 20 as a whole. During the numerous discussions, the participants inter alia voiced the following options: setting of the minimum number of MPs to execute the right of legislative initiative; introduction of the institution of legislative proposal as a way to enforce the MPs’ right of legislative initiative; introduction of the institution of support letters for legislative initiatives of individual MPs; granting the right of legislative initiative to the committees of the Verkhovna Rada.

Which of these options, according to MPs and experts, are the most acceptable for the Verkhovna Rada? How significant is the problem of “legislative tsunami”? Can it be solved in one of these ways?

In her interview with Olha Snitsarchuk on Channel 5, Svitlana Matviienko, Chairwoman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, analyzed the annual address of the President of Ukraine to the Verkhovna Rada, focusing on the issues of lifting MPs’ immunity, CEC problems, the war, and the Minsk agreements.

Apart from that, Svitlana presented the analytical report “Code of Ethics: Structure, Content, and Subject Matter. Realities and Proposals for Codification”, which generalizes discussions concerning the idea of creating a code of ethics for Ukrainian parliamentarians, as well as the codification of all current rules governing MPs’ behavior.

“MPs do not fully realize what they should do in Parliament”, said Svitlana Matviienko, Chairwoman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, in conversation with Olha Aivazovska and Andriy Saychuk on the program “Reform. Parliament” on hromadske.ua.

Discussing the issue of elaboration of a Code of MPs’ Ethics, Svitlana spoke about international experience of drafting such codes as well as focused on issues of lobbying, conflict of interests, and the need to regulate the work of MPs as a professional activity.

MPs’ ethics is not an issue of parliamentary behavior, parliamentary vocabulary, or the argument of “throwing your sword”. This issue is much wider. MPs tend to think that most issues of parliamentary ethics should be solved with the help of anti-corruption legislation. But there are questions of unregulated lobbying; conflict of interest; very important questions of what MPs engage in after they cease to be deputies, how they are recruited and how they use all the privileges granted to them.

The issue of the Code of MPs’ Ethics in Ukraine is rather old. Yulia Tyshchenko, in cooperation with UCIPR, did a very important work, i.e. they considered this issue from voters’ perspective rather than from MPs’, having arranged focus groups across Ukraine to ask voters whether they think this code to be necessary. The results turned out to be rather unexpected because people consider it extremely significant and believe that it should regulate not only MPs’ behavior in the session hall but also outside Parliament. One can observe a certain imbalance; MPs’ understanding of ethics is at a lower level than the awareness among ordinary citizens.

It is important to raise the awareness of MPs because they are people with different levels of education and different professional backgrounds; there are those who were elected for the first time, and we had to work with all of them. Therefore, we started this work. This convocation of the Verkhovna Rada is interesting because it is in this convocation that the name of the committee responsible for ethical questions was reduced to just the Committee on Rules, without the word ‘ethics’ in it. In addition, it does not even have a chairperson to this day, only an acting chairman.

In different countries, issues of parliamentary ethics are regulated differently, and each country chooses its own format. In Britain, it is the Nolan principles; in Sweden, there is a list of laws united in one module; the European Parliament has a big code, which, by the way, does not contain any sanction section. The experience of Estonia, which we have used from the very beginning, demonstrates that it is sometimes possible to adopt a code without sanctions, and then add a sanction section.

Many international and Ukrainian experts can write a good document, but it will be useless. That is why we work with the deputy corps. It is necessary that each faction should have representatives working on the ethical code, who are constantly immersed in the process. For if different factions and groups are not in agreement on the decision, it will be pointless and will not be legitimate, and nobody will follow it. The Code of Parliamentary Ethics can exist in various forms, and it does not matter whether it will be adopted by a Law of Ukraine, by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, or will become part of the MP’s oath.

Currently, the activities of MPs are regulated by the Constitution of Ukraine, the Law on the Status of People’s Deputies, and the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. However, very often the regulatory provisions of these documents are simply ignored. For example, when somebody is fighting in the hall, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine should stop the meeting. Very often we see that it does not happen, as in the case of Serhiy Leshchenko’s torn jacket or when foul language is heard in the hall.

Tetiana Chernukha, program coordinator of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, in her interview for Hromadske Radio spoke about the specifics and problems of local referendums, covering a wide range of issues, such as decommunisation, decentralization of power, constitutional rights and freedoms of Ukrainian citizens.

The right to initiate and conduct a local referendum is a constitutional right of the citizens of Ukraine and one of the most important forms of the direct exercise of power by the people (Article 5 of the Constitution of Ukraine).

Article 38 of the Constitution of Ukraine guarantees the right of citizens to take part in national and local referendums. However, after the Law of Ukraine On National and Local Referendums of 1991 became invalid, and the Law of Ukraine On National Referendum of 2012 came into force, a legally fixed mechanism for initiating and conducting local referendums disappeared. On the other hand, the country’s regional agenda is aimed at decentralization and deregulation, which implies extending the rights of citizens as to addressing local issues, including through initiation and holding of local referendums. For instance, within the framework of the reform, the Law of Ukraine On Civic Associations was adopted, whereby a local referendum is a necessary component of this process. However, there is still a lack of a legislative framework for the settlement of a mechanism for holding local referendums.

The key problems associated with local referendum as a mechanism of direct democracy include:

1. threats to the territorial integrity of Ukraine;
2. use of a local referendum to legitimize dubious or downright illegal decisions of local authorities; and
3. violation of the procedure for initiation and holding of local referendums.

The very theme of responsible leadership came from business – large corporations launched the process that now fully applies to all areas. A responsible leader is a person who clearly sets an ambitious goal and as a result achieves certain public good. But it has to be said that he or she adheres to his/her principles. In addition, it worth noting that sometimes losses may exceed the result achieved.

The issue of leadership is a difficult one because in emergency situations people can behave in an unexpected way. Psychologists argue that it is impossible to predict a person’s reaction in a crisis situation. Therefore, under certain circumstances, any person can manifest and discover some unexpected skills. In order to be a leader, it is not necessary to be an extrovert because literature and philosophy clearly demonstrate how introverts influence the course of history with their words and texts. Today, things that public speakers say are often written for them by covert opinion leaders. In the days of pervasive populism, the number of views and likes in social networks have become absolutely unrepresentative.

The case of Ernest Shackleton is often cited as a striking example of responsible leadership. In 1914, Shackleton decided to cross Antarctica via the South Pole, but the expedition ship got caught in an ice trap. Despite all challenges and inhumane conditions, Shackleton did not lose any member of the team. His ability to motivate people, plan the expedition in advance and predict hardships made it possible to save the people from their icy captivity.

Responsible leader is someone who, first of all, sets an ambitious goal; secondly, they are able to plan and take responsibility for consequences; and thirdly, they motivate people till the end. A responsible leader is someone who can weigh all pros and contras so that public good could be obtained with minimum losses.

Global targets work best since development consists in the fulfillment of the most ambitious goals. Quantitative indicators cannot adequately represent the success of a leader because it is not always clear how certain qualitative changes will affect processes in the future.

Lifelong learning and adult education are among trending education strategies. Leaders themselves must keep on growing. When a team develops faster than the leader, a wave of progress will sweep him/her away. However, without visionary concepts, the team may also disappear.