On October 21, at 10:30 am, in the office of USAID RADA Program: Responsible Accountable Democratic Assembly, the Agency for Legislative Initiatives held a consultative meeting within the framework of “II Dialogues on Parliamentary Ethics”, with the support of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy and Embassy of the Netherlands in Ukraine. The meeting was broadcasted online via YouTube.
Invited experts, Margit Sutrop, Professor of Practical Philosophy, Marten Yuurik, Center for Ethics, University of Tartu, and Dirk Toornstra, Independent Governance Advisor, held a training game with representatives of NGOs involving the analysis of complex ethical cases, which will be further presented to MPs.
Ihor Kohut, Director of the USAID RADA Program: Responsible Accountable Democratic Assembly, said that parliamentary ethics was one of the cornerstones of the program in cooperation with the OSCE ODIHR. Meetings at the level of NGO experts help to “test” the game, based on cases with complex ethical challenges. He said the following:
Kateryna Ryabiko, project coordinator of the OSCE ODIHR, elaborated on the extension of the pilot project:
Margit Sutrop, Professor of Practical Philosophy, Head of the Center for Ethics, University of Tartu, noted that a code of conduct was necessary if we should take the European Parliament as an example:
MPs need to agree on the Code so that people could understand why must be followed, rather than just to ‘show off’ how ethical they are.
