On January 17, 2018, the Policy Paper “Policy Proposals to Regulate the Status of the Local Council Members” was presented at the meeting of the Committee on State Building, Regional Policy and Local Self-Government.

Kateryna Handzyuk, Advisor to the Kherson City Mayor, Councilor of the Kherson Oblast Council, member of the Executive Committee of the Kherson City Council, expert of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives:

Ms. Handzyuk highlighted the following recommendations aimed at settling the status of the local councilor:

1. Article 2 of the Law “On the Status of Local Councilors” shall be amended with paragraph 2 as follows: “Not later than at the second session, councilors of city, city district, district, and oblast councils elected in multi-mandate constituencies shall be appointed to the respective territorial election districts by decision of the relevant council/by decision of the local organizations of the political parties from whose electoral lists they were elected. The relevant decision is urgent and shall be published in official print publications, on official websites, information stands or in any other way communicated to the voters of the respective territorial constituency no later than in 1 working day”.
2. All other articles shall use the term ‘relevant territorial election district represented by a councilor’.
3. Para. 3, Section 1 of Article 37 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Status of Local Councilors” (“lack of compliance of the councilor’s practical activity with the basic principles and provisions of his election program”) shall be deleted, since Article 38 of the Law of Ukraine “On Local Elections” does not require that candidates provide any election programs.
4. Instead, Para. 1, Section 1, Article 37 (Grounds for recalling of local councilors by voters who elected them) shall be revised to read as follows: “infringement by the local councilor after assumption of powers of the provisions of the Constitution and laws of Ukraine related to his office as established by the court”.
5. Section 3 of Art. 38 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Status of Local Councilors” shall provide for the obligation to publish information on the date, place and time of the meeting of the action group for recalling a councilor in regional and/or local mass media, or an announcement of the meeting must be posted on the official website of the relevant local council.
6. Para. 2 of Art. 38 (concerning the meeting of the action group) shall be supplemented with the requirement: “A decision shall be deemed adopted if upheld by two-thirds of the voters present at the meeting”.
7. It is necessary to minimize the political influence of territorial election commissions by depriving them of the right to verify the collected signatures. This task shall be committed to the bodies of the State Register of Voters, accordingly changing their powers, as well as specifying the law enforcement body to be involved in checking 10% of the collected signatures as well as the ways of this involvement.
8. The Law of Ukraine “On the State Register of Voters” and the Law of Ukraine “On National Police” shall be amended to establish the obligation to verify the authenticity of information about citizens contained in the signatures sheet in support of the proposal to recall the local councilor on public initiative and selective verification of voters’ signatures by the State Register of Voters and Police, as well as the procedure for such verification.
9. The Law “On the Status of Local Councilor” shall stipulate that local councilors may be recalled by the voters of the electoral district where the councilor was elected/appointed rather than the voters of the entire multi-mandate constituency; the required number shall be set at the level of the electoral quotient +1 vote.

Olena Ledovskyh, the First Deputy Chairwoman of the Committee on State Building, Regional Policy and Local Self-Government, emphasized that the Committee takes to account the presented information and submits it to the Subcommittee that deals with these issues.

On December 20, 2017, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine held a press briefing devoted to the presentation of policy papers on the topic “Concept of ‘End-to-End’ Legislative Process” and “Proposals Concerning the Policy of Government’s Reporting in Parliament”.

The event was organized by the Agency Legislative Initiatives in co-operation with Dmytro Lubinets, MP of Ukraine, Secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Rules of Parliamentary Procedure and Support to Work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine within the framework of the USAID RADA Program: Responsible, Accountable, Democratic Assembly implemented by the East Europe Foundation.

The papers were presented by:

• Dmytro Lubinets, MP of Ukraine;
• Oleksandr Zaslavskyi, author of the study, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives.

The draft concept paper on the “end-to-end” legislative process contains an analysis of existing practices, an overview of international experience, as well as proposals as to the concept of the “end-to-end” legislative process reform focused on strengthening coordination between legislative initiative actors. This document suggests alternative options of changing the legislative process “end to end”, which can be provisionally called “government-centered” (based on the experience of France), “parliament-centered” (based on the US experience), and “the concept of minimum necessary changes” (based on analysis of existing practices in Ukraine).

The document “Proposals Concerning the Policy of Government’s Reporting in Parliament” focuses on the main issues of communication between Government and Parliament, analyzes international experience, and provides suggestions for improving communication between Government and the Verkhovna Rada.

Dmytro Lubinets, MP of Ukraine:

I am very pleased that now the activities of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine have an effect – a very positive one – on public organizations, which help MPs and offer their proposals on how to improve the work of the Verkhovna Rada and activities associated with legislative initiatives

Oleksandr Zaslavskyi, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, presented two analytical documents: “Concept of ‘End-to-End’ Legislative Process” and “Proposals Concerning the Policy of Government’s Reporting in Parliament”, prepared within the framework of the USAID RADA Program: Responsible, Accountable, Democratic Assembly implemented by the East Europe Foundation.

Mr. Zaslavskyi observed that at the end of February 2016, the European Parliament’s needs assessment mission led by Pat Cox presented its Roadmap on Internal Reform and Capacity-Building for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. On March 17, 2016, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the Resolution on Measures to Implement the 52 Recommendations Contained in the Roadmap.

The presented policy papers are developed to clarify and extend the recommendations contained in the Roadmap. The documents analyze the current procedures and practices of decision-making in the Ukrainian parliament, examine the international experience and suggest a certain vision for improvement of these processes. Among the specific problems analyzed in the documents, Mr. Zaslavskyi highlighted the lack of strategic planning in policy-making, as well as the lack of coordination and communication between the legislative and executive branches of government in the legislative process.

The proposals that require special attention include: review of the status of the Government’s Program of Activity (in the event of a Government’s failure to present this document, it should resign); the agenda of sessions should be formed on the basis and in pursuance of the Government’s Program of Activity; any document should be based on the results of monitoring and assessment of already implemented laws or certain policies. Moreover, any legislative initiative should come with a monitoring and assessment plan approved by the Main Committee of the Verkhovna Rada.

On December 18, 2017, the Committee on State Building, Regional Policy and Local Self-Government held a roundtable on “Legislative Regulation of the Legal Status of Local Councilors: State of Play and Prospects for Improvement”, which included presentation of the Policy Paper “Policy Proposals to Regulate the Status of the Local Council Members” .

The event was organized by the VRU Committee on State Building, Regional Policy and Local Self-Government in co-operation with the project Promoting Local Democracy in Ukraine implemented by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.

The roundtable involved discussion of the current state and thorny issues of the implementation of Ukrainian legislation as regards the status of local councilors, ways to resolve these issues, and examination of the international experience of the work of local councilors.

Kateryna Handzyuk, Advisor to the Kherson City Mayor, Councilor of the Kherson Oblast Council, member of the Executive Committee of the Kherson City Council, expert of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives:

Presenting the study, Ms. Handzyuk focused on the issue of constituencies in the light of the current Law “On Local Elections”; the issue of recalling local councilors in the current Law and the practice of its enforcement; judicial practice of appealing against decisions, actions and inactivity of territorial election commissions in the process of recalling councilors on people’s initiative; as well as examined the stakeholders and their impact on the problem.

Ms. Handzyuk highlighted the following recommendations aimed at settling the status of the local councilor:

1. Article 2 of the Law “On the Status of Local Councilors” shall be amended with paragraph 2 as follows: “Not later than at the second session, councilors of city, city district, district, and oblast councils elected in multi-mandate constituencies shall be appointed to the respective territorial election districts by decision of the relevant council/by decision of the local organizations of the political parties from whose electoral lists they were elected. The relevant decision is urgent and shall be published in official print publications, on official websites, information stands or in any other way communicated to the voters of the respective territorial constituency no later than in 1 working day”.
2. All other articles shall use the term ‘relevant territorial election district represented by a councilor’.
3. Para. 3, Section 1 of Article 37 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Status of Local Councilors” (“lack of compliance of the councilor’s practical activity with the basic principles and provisions of his election program”) shall be deleted, since Article 38 of the Law of Ukraine “On Local Elections” does not require that candidates provide any election programs.
4. Instead, Para. 1, Section 1, Article 37 (Grounds for recalling of local councilors by voters who elected them) shall be revised to read as follows: “infringement by the local councilor after assumption of powers of the provisions of the Constitution and laws of Ukraine related to his office as established by the court”.
5. Section 3 of Art. 38 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Status of Local Councilors” shall provide for the obligation to publish information on the date, place and time of the meeting of the action group for recalling a councilor in regional and/or local mass media, or an announcement of the meeting must be posted on the official website of the relevant local council.
6. Para. 2 of Art. 38 (concerning the meeting of the action group) shall be supplemented with the requirement: “A decision shall be deemed adopted if upheld by two-thirds of the voters present at the meeting”.
7. It is necessary to minimize the political influence of territorial election commissions by depriving them of the right to verify the collected signatures. This task shall be committed to the bodies of the State Register of Voters, accordingly changing their powers, as well as specifying the law enforcement body to be involved in checking 10% of the collected signatures as well as the ways of this involvement.
8. The Law of Ukraine “On the State Register of Voters” and the Law of Ukraine “On National Police” shall be amended to establish the obligation to verify the authenticity of information about citizens contained in the signatures sheet in support of the proposal to recall the local councilor on public initiative and selective verification of voters’ signatures by the State Register of Voters and Police, as well as the procedure for such verification.
9. The Law “On the Status of Local Councilor” shall stipulate that local councilors may be recalled by the voters of the electoral district where the councilor was elected/appointed rather than the voters of the entire multi-mandate constituency; the required number shall be set at the level of the electoral quotient +1 vote.

The event was organized by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives in partnership of the Committee for Informatization and Communications and International IDEA.

Oleksandr Danchenko, Chair of the Parliamentary Committee for Informatization and Communications said at the Committee Hearings:

Olena Matuzko, Secretary of the Committee for Informatization and Communications of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine mentioned:

Svitlana Matviienko, Chairwoman of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, noticed that the changes which occur around the whole world induce developments also in Ukraine. In particular, this refers to the possibility of electronic voting to be implemented in Ukraine in 2024. Nonetheless, it is quite an exaggeration to insist on the preparedness of the state. The Green Paper on the Information Security of the Electoral Process, which will be finalized taking into account today’s discussion and recommendations, aims to accelerate this progress.

Danylo Mialkovskyi, Head of the Department of the Administration of the State Service for Special Communication and Information Protection, spoke of up-to-date mechanisms for information security in the election process. Mr. Mialkovskyi emphasized the fact that the introduction of electronic voting could motivate youth to take part in elections, which indicates the stage of democracy development in the country. The introduction of electronic voting requires not only the reassessment of the election infrastructure but also revision of institutional and resource capabilities of Ukraine. Considering the practices for building confidence in electronic voting, Mr. Mialkovskyi claimed that it is very important to accurately identify a person who votes. This is possible to do by using the Ukrainian passport as ID-card as well as by implementing the technology of digital signing with mobile terminals – mobile ID. On the other hand, we need to pay special attention to the legal regulation of these technical tools.

Oleksandr Stelmakh, Director of the Disposer Service of the State Register of Voters, Central Election Commission, said that since 1998 the Central Election Commission has a data analytics system “Elections”, which embraces all stages of the election process. Mr. Stelmakh pointed at issues and challenges to the high-quality election process, which are the following: the replacement of the electoral legislation every election; the absence of regular election commissions; the neglect of new election technologies; unreasonable cutbacks to funding for information programs; the poor status on the state register data accumulation and ID-card distribution.

Yevhen Yakovenko, Deputy Head of the Division as part of the Department of the Counterintelligence Protection of the State Interests in the Field of Information Security of the Security Service of Ukraine, noticed that the Central Election Commission was one of the first institutions in Ukraine that built two of the most important information systems – a system of election automatization and system of the state register of voters. These systems are under constant cyberattacks of hostile intelligence agencies. Two main types of attacks are the following: information field, which is a creation of a bad reputation for the state, and intrusion into the work of these systems with the aim to block information or distort it.

Oleksandr Ryzhenko, Head of the State Agency on e-Governance of Ukraine, emphasized the importance of the adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Electronic Trust Services”, which can help to introduce new election technologies and election services for citizens that will simplify the exchange of electronic documents for citizens. Nevertheless, there are some questions that persist. Those are the following: access to information; digital inequality between the citizens who live in big cities and those who live in Ukrainian regions; improvement of the electronic identification of citizens. Mr. Ryzhenko agreed with previous speakers on the fact that informatization needs citizens’ confidence.

Peter Wolf, Technical Manager and Expert on Elections, Constitution-building, ICTs in elections, International IDEA, gave attention to electoral technologies and main trends in cybersecurity. Peter Wolf named main problems with cybersecurity during elections, which are the following: DDoS attacks, web hacking and manipulation with content; system hacking; information leaks; information and data accumulation; distribution of disinformation. Appropriate measures to undertake would be national interdepartmental coordination, detailed analysis of all processes, resource enhancement for protection, control, detection and counteraction to dangers.

Prof. Carsten Schürmann, IT University of Copenhagen, told how to provide elections with information and communication technologies and how to protect election systems. Prof. Schürmann paid attention to the fact that it is necessary to carefully prepare legislature and technologies to make elections transparent and effective. In addition, he specially emphasized the fact that the very technical system of elections is vulnerable to cyberattacks, no matter how much it is protected from hackers. You need to have hard evidence, such as bulletins, which you can verify after the publication of results. It is usually best to use both technologies and bulletins because only technologies guarantee transparency, and confidence in elections is formed by a conducted audit.

Peter Erben, IFES Ukraine Senior Country Director, IFES Senior Global Electoral Adviser, laid bare the specifics of the use of electoral technologies in Ukraine. Mr. Erben pointed out that ten years ago people were optimistic regarding the use of technologies in the election process, while today they have become very sceptical because of constant cyber threats and attacks. There has been a regression in the use of electoral technologies because of the confidence issues. Thanks to technologies we can promptly process big data, but they cannot replace old ‘manual’ methods. They can only complement and improve them. Mr. Erben mentioned that the state register of voters in Ukraine is very good. And traditionally, it is the most problematic election tool in the whole world. Nonetheless, Ukraine is not up to speed on the election result management.

Oleksii Koshel, Head of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, emphasized the importance of a high-quality and clearly spelled out legislative framework to avoid additional risks while using new technologies. Mr. Koshel indicated the risks for the Ukrainian electoral system, which are the following: constant Russian interventions and distrust in election results.

Yegor Aushev, Project Director at Cyber Guard, Co-founder of HACKEN, during the presentation of the conception of the Green paper for information security of the election process, made a point that this document is created to present some aspects of information security of the election process, detect problems, assess the scope, dynamics and acuteness of detected problems, and propose possible solutions.

Ihor Malchenyuk, Technology Strategist, Microsoft, Associated Member, Ukrainian Information Security Group (NGO), Co-founder of City Innovation Platform (NGO), emphasized that the Green paper gave attention to the analysis of important components of the election process, such as the state register of voters, vote counting, personal data protection. Cyberattacks of foreign countries is a challenge to national sovereignty, and they are threatening the political system, ruining confidence, damaging data, and hindering the use of technologies.

Victor Zhora, Director of Infosafe IT, analysed the evolution of the “Elections” system; investigated into how the Ukrainian electoral system changed from 2002 till 2017; revealed main phases of attacks on the electoral system of Ukraine, such as non-sanctioned interventions, distortion of results, and DDoS attacks; in addition, told about ways how to make the election process in Ukraine safer. Mr. Zhora emphasized that Ukraine was a testing platform to cyberattack an electoral system. Cybersecurity is a stumbling block in regards to the confidence in the election process.

Volodymyr Flonts, Head of SCO “Electronic Democracy”, made a point that the term ‘Internet-voting’ is already present in the Ukrainian legislation. Mr. Flonts mentioned that there are no hindrances to introduce open Internet-voting. It is harder to implement ballot voting. Without trust in the voting process we do not have the legitimacy of election.

At the end of the committee hearings, prof. Carsten Schürmann showed an example of a cyberattack on the electronic voting system – hacking of a voting machine. With the help of his computer, information search in the Internet, and simple tricks, prof. Schürmann could enter in 5 minutes in the system of the voting machine and changed the saved data.

On December 14, 2017, the Committee hearings on “Principles of E-Governance in the Electoral Process” were held including presentation of the Policy Paper “Proposals for Policy on Cybersecurity Reform in Ukraine”.

The event was organized by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives in cooperation with the Committee on Informatization and Communications of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine with the support of the International IDEA.

The Hearings were attended by 42 people, including representatives of the Cabinet of Ministers, specialized parliamentary committees, a representative of the Central Election Commission and representatives of NGOs working on the improvement of the electoral process in Ukraine.

The Policy Paper “Proposals for Policy on Cybersecurity Reform in Ukraine” identifies and describes the problem; examines the regulatory principles of cybersecurity; analyzes the respective reform of EU legislation and its implications for the cybersecurity of Ukraine; offers alternatives and analyzes the barriers and ways to overcome them.

The paper was presented by one of its authors – Yegor Aushev, Project Manager of the Cyber Guard, co-founder of HACKEN.

Svitlana Matviienko, Chairwoman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, noted that changes taking place around the world were encouraging Ukraine to change too. In particular, this concerns the prospect of the introduction of an electronic electoral process in Ukraine by 2024. However, it would be a great exaggeration to claim that our country is ready to this process. The Green Paper on the Information Security of the Electoral Process, which will be finalized following today’s discussions and recommendations, aims to at least partially fill this gap.

Oleksandr Yakymenko, Program Coordinator in Ukraine, International IDEA:

The Hub for Party Innovations provides a unique platform for spreading knowledge about the use of modern technologies and innovations for the development of party democracy in Ukraine. The Hub for Party Innovations was initiated by International IDEA and the Ukrainian School of Political Studies, a project of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives.

The Hub included training sessions on communication with voters, party transparency, and accountability, intraparty democracy and effective management, as well as on the Democracy Labs tool developed by International IDEA to introduce innovation and digital technology into the daily practice of political parties.

Oleksandr Yakymenko, Program Coordinator for the Great Europe Program of the International Institute for Democracy and Elections, noted that the Hub emerged as a response to the challenges of global processes, specifically the crisis of representation (representation of interests), the gap between what voters want and what their elected representatives do.

Svitlana Matviienko, Chairwoman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, emphasized the relevance of political education and establishment of inter-party dialogue. Ms. Matviienko also drew attention to the importance of transfer from the leader-based model of party construction towards the development of intra-party democracy.

Kyrylo Tretiak, the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy, observed that the Institute provides educational and advisory assistance to political parties, contributing to their democratic development and inter-party dialogue.

Yevhen Barshchevskyi, the Research and Innovation Program at the representative office of the National Democratic Institute in Ukraine, informed the participants of the training about the “Your Opinion” polling system, which gives political parties, NGOs and NGO networks the opportunity to organize online consultations through voting via text messages or a website; as well as CiviCRM – a system for tracking relations and interactions.

Oleksandra Kuziv, Project Manager of Political Memory project, Civic Movement CHESNO, and Vita Dumanska, Coordinator of the ‘Follow the Money’ Campaign, Civic Movement CHESNO, presented the resources of E-Reporting, Political Memory and Party Gold to the participants of the training. These are innovative tools for assessing politicians and parties designed to help citizens make a rational and informed choice. The resources include data from the CEC, VRU, local councils, party websites, NAPC, propaganda archives of Istorychna Pravda and media archives.

Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, Executive Director of Transparency International Ukraine, discussed both external and intraparty openness of political parties with Hub participants. Openness generates voters’ confidence in political parties and is the most important resource. To what extent are representatives of the main stakeholders in the political process prepared to openness?

Sam van der Staak, Head of the Wider Europe program of International IDEA, told the training participants about the role of technologies in restoring communication between political parties and the public; the attitude of young people to technologies in the context of the political process; how digitalization can help parties overcome the crisis of representation; why the onset of the technological era means that political campaigns never end; which online resources should be preferred; what political parties should remember using technologies.

Gefion Thuermer, University of Southampton and the German Green Party, elaborated on the opportunities that digitalization opens to political parties; how to use online resources for management of knowledge, suggestions, discussions and communication; the positive effects of digitalization; the risks political parties can face when using online resources; things political parties should take into account in order to achieve the best result using digital instruments.

Digital technologies provide a large-scale coverage that gives people a sense of engagement and involvement in political processes. Decentralization helps political parties build personal relationships with voters, even without interacting with them in person.

Michael Babiak, Co-founder and CEO of ArrowIQ, a former Director of Marketing Technologies during the Trump campaign, told participants how technologies could help build a successful campaign starting with just one Twitter account.

Digital technologies help parties build effective work in different areas: during elections and voting; finance sourcing and fundraising; general party management; networking and communication; policy development – training participants discussed these topics with Gary Klaukka, Programme Officer in the Political Parties, Participation and Representation Programme, International IDEA.

Sergey Gaidai, Director of Strategic Planning of the Social-Engineering Agency Gaidai.Kom, elaborated on such topics as the worlds included in Ukraine; the main political technology of the Ukrainian political class; the real PR and approaches to carrying it out; the essence of the technology of real action; the events Ukraine needs; and ways to form the discipline of thinking.

During the period from October to November 2017, the USAID RADA Program held five discussions on parliamentary reform involving MPs of Ukraine, the staff of the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, representatives of Government, experts and the public, aiming to develop recommendations for their further implementation within parliamentary reform. Specifically, the discussion covered such issues as performing parliamentary oversight functions, interaction of the legislative and executive branches of power in the legislative process, strengthening of the role of committees and the VRU Secretariat, creation of a separate parliamentary service, tackling of the problem of the voting procedure, and the role of support documents in the legislative process.

Based on the results of discussions on parliamentary reform, the USAID RADA Program organized the conference “Role of Parliament, Heads of State, Government and the Public in Improving the Quality of the Legislative Process”.

Within the framework of the conference, the Agency for Legislative Initiatives presented the paper “Concept of End-to-End Legislative Process”.

Oleksandr Zaslavskyi, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives:

Thus, the first reading as a key stage in the consideration of bills is reduced. However, according to the logic of the Rules of Procedure the VRU, it is the first reading stage that should guarantee a comprehensive discussion of the problem, its relevance, proposed solutions, and expected results. The flaws of draft laws start becoming manifest during the further work on preparing it for the second reading which, due to its limitations, does not allow for opportunities to improve the key idea of the bill, making possible only pinpoint and technical changes.

Moreover, during the 4th and 5th sessions (February 2016 – January 2017), most of the bills were adopted in the first reading, and in total 116 out of 187 were approved as a whole (62%). At the same time, 51 out of the 116 above bills (44%) were adopted contrary to the opinions or comments of the Central Scientific Experts Office of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which prepares expert opinions for the first reading. Obviously, this attests to the poor quality of the bills, at least in terms of the regulation design mechanism, internal consistency of the text of acts, or compliance with the current laws, the Constitution or international agreements. What’s more, these bills are adopted almost without discussion and without prospects of improvement during the second reading.

This is coupled with the situation around transitional provisions of bills adopted as a whole. Such provisions often contain instructions for the Government to align relevant subordinate acts in pursuance of the adopted laws. Such transitional provisions with instructions (specific or general) are contained in 91 laws approved as a whole during the 4th and 5th sessions (47%). Obviously, the Government should be ready to comply with the laws. However, it is difficult to imagine how one can prepare for such a situation when it is impossible to predict stage and form of adoption of a draft law.

As a result, the Government faces the problem of enforcement of “imperfect” or poorly-prepared laws, which spawns the need to initiate more changes to the already adopted legislation. As a result, these parliamentary practices are one of the reasons why 60% to 75% of the bills adopted as a whole during the 8th session are secondary, that is, they amend existing laws. For the presently registered bills, this figure is even greater. To sum up, it can be argued that the lack of thorough work on draft laws and attempts to quickly adopt them without comprehensive discussion produce the need to register even more bills. This, in turn, is one of the sources of the very “legislative tsunami” referred to in the Roadmap of the European Parliament’s Needs Assessment Mission.

Mr. Zaslavskyi also focused on the recommendations that need to be implemented to improve the law-making process.

Including:

• drafting and adopting the Law “On Regulatory Acts” introducing appropriate amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine in order to ensure the effective distribution of the sphere of regulation of laws and by-laws, as well as to establish common rules for drafting bills, their coordination among the involved parties, the procedure of interaction of the entities of legislative activity, enactment of laws, enforcement, monitoring and evaluation of the enforcement of laws, etc. Moreover, this will help to introduce the procedure of voting for ordinary laws by a majority of those present in the session hall;
• setting forth in the Rules of Procedure of a certain number of 20 MPs’ signatures necessary to register bills or introducing letters of support for registered bills for them to be considered in the session hall (Draft Law No. 6640);
• introducing the mechanism of MP’s individual legislative proposal;
• limiting the right of MPs’ legislative initiative in financial and economic matters;
• review of the status of the Government’s Program of Activity. In the event of the Government’s failure to provide this document, it should resign (introduction of a constructive confidence vote). The session agenda should be drawn up on the basis and in pursuance of the Government’s Program of Activity;
• limiting the number of bills to be submitted for discussion within a week. For example, up to 10 bills. In this context, priority should be given to the government initiatives aimed at implementing the Government’s Program of Activity;
• introduction of a mechanism for political co-ordination (first of all with regard to compliance with the Coalition Agreement and the Government’ Program of Activity) of legislative initiatives (submitted as a brief analytical note containing primary information on the current policies in a particular area or symptoms of a problem). Only after examining this initiative for compliance with the government’s program of activity (and, possibly, the coalition agreement) and its approval by representatives of political factions and groups, can preparation of analytics be launched and the text of the bill be drafted;
• ensuring that the Government should prepare regulations for the enactment of the law before the law is adopted as a whole or that Government should give a reasoned explanation why no such regulations need to be drafted;
• ensuring that bills should be discussed under the full procedure in the first reading and that bills should be considered under the full-fledged procedure of three readings (as stipulated by the Rules of Procedure of the VRU);
• introduction of monitoring and evaluation of the enactment of a particular law or the state of legal regulation of a particular field of social relations based on any legislative initiative. Any legislative initiative should come with a monitoring and evaluation plan that should be agreed with the Main Committee of the Verkhovna Rada;
• introduction of a single platform for all legislative initiative entities to register, log and track all regulations. The Computerized Systems Department is developing a resource tentatively entitled “Electronic Draft Law” – a single platform for all legislative initiative entities to register draft acts, which will make it possible to track the status of the bill.

The conference of the Ukrainian School of Political Studies is quite an event for the USPS community. It is the 12th time that School alumni of different years, guests, partners, and friends have gathered together to congratulate this year’s alumni, involve in professional discussions with renowned experts from around the world, share their ideas concerning topical current issues, and, of course, chat with old friends.

At the opening session, welcoming remarks were made by Svitlana MATVIIENKO, Chairwoman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives; Arturas ZUOKAS, City Mayor of Vilnius (2000-2007, 2011-2015), Member of the Supervisory Board of the USPS; Hugues MINGARELLI, Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine, and Morten ENBERG, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine. The event was moderated by Oleksandr BOHUTSKYI, CEO of ICTV TV Channel, member of the Board of the EastOne Investment and Consulting Group, USPS alumnus.

Svitlana MATVIIENKO, welcoming the USPS community, stressed that only responsible citizens with critical thinking could make changes valid.

Yevhen BYSTRYTSKYI, Ph.D., Executive Director of the International Renaissance Foundation, addressed words of welcome to the alumni and guests of the School. Mr. Bystrytskyi emphasized that a rational approach was not enough to enable changes, you need a will and a mood. That is why he wished graduates to have a strong will to change, a will for a new Ukraine.

At the conference, it was announced that Mr. Bystrytskyi had become a member of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian School of Political Studies.

Another speaker addressing the USPS community was Andrius KUBILIUS, Member of the Lithuanian Seimas, Chairman of a temporary pro-Ukrainian group, co-initiator of the Marshall Plan for Ukraine, and Prime Minister of the Republic of Lithuania (1999-2000; 2008-2012). Mr. Kubilius drew attention to the decisive role of personal energy in the process of achieving desired changes. It is energy – the ability to generate energy for others, as well as personal energy and passion – that can ensure success. Mr. Kubilius emphasized that Ukrainians need to have confidence in their own future, need to be longing for success.

Judging by some important indicators, our generation is the most fortunate in the history of mankind. However, we also have to deal with some of the most difficult issues humanity has ever faced: how to cope with our growing interdependence? Can civics, as understood by many different cultures, help us in our attempts to breed a centripetal civic culture, pushing us all together and mixing our lives? – the USPS community discussed these issues with Hakan ALTINAI, President of the Global Civics Academy, Director of the European School of Politics (Turkey).

The second day of the conference started with a presentation by Yuliya MOSTOVA, Editor-in-Chief of the Mirror Weekly (Dzerkalo Tyzhnya), member of the Supervisory Board of the USPS. Ms. Mostova came up with a critical analysis of Ukrainian society, the ruling elite and socio-political processes and trends currently taking place in Ukraine, with a focus on the threats facing our state.

The primary question of any public policy is whether this policy is needed at all? In post-Soviet countries, government intervention tends to be harmful. During the latest three years, Ukraine has made numerous attempts to reform various fields, but only some of them manifest signs of future success. The government’s inability to develop and implement quality policies is often put down to a lack of political will. However, even if there were political will, there is no capacity to implement the necessary reforms. The state machinery mainly engages in “manual control”, that is operational issues. In this situation, weak institutions are obstacles rather than incentives for advancement. What institutions have to be destroyed or built for successful reforms? How to introduce true politics into our political games?

The discussion was attended by:

• Bohdan KRAVCHENKO, Ph.D., Director General of the University of Central Asia;
• Ivanna KLYMPUSH-TSINTSADZE, Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine;
• Oleksandr DANYLIUK, Minister of Finance of Ukraine.

Moderated by Olena MAKEIEVA, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors, Audit Company Aksonova & Associates, Geneva Group International, USPS alumnus.

We can easily identify the main obstacles on the path to the “New Ukraine”. But most of us find it hard to imagine what this “New Ukraine” should be like. Undoubtedly, advanced independent institutions, including anti-corruption bodies, free legal aid, CEC, courts, and media that set the frame for the political discourse in the country, prevent the spread of corruption and degradation. How to make these institutions truly independent in Ukraine? How to shift public attention from populism to important aspects of the framework of the New Ukraine?

The discussion was attended by:

• Serhiy LESHCHENKO, MP of Ukraine;
• Olga AYVAZOVSKA, Chairwoman of the Board, Coordinator of Electoral and Political Programs of the Civil Network OPORA, a representative of Ukraine in the political subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group on Donbas, USPS alumnus;
• Andriy STELMASHCHUK, President of the Ukrainian Bar Association, Managing Partner of Vasil Kisil & Partners, USPS alumnus;
• Andriy VYSHNEVSKY, Program Leader of the Tomorrow’s Lawyer, Director of the Coordination Center for Legal Aid Provision (2012-2017), USPS alumnus.

Moderated by Oleksandr KHORUZHENKO, Director of the Sumy Department of the Center for Local Self-Government Development, USPS alumnus.

Liberal democracy requires a “pure” public sphere for democratic debate. But what are the conditions for a pure public sphere? John Stuart Mill believed that in a pure public sphere any views, however contradictory, should receive full public attention. Thus, Mill would be happy with the Russian TV channel Russia Today, whose motto is “Question more”. Based on the lessons of modern information wars, we can argue that there are grounds for revising Mill’s arguments and their conclusions. How does propaganda work? How can we win the information warfare? – School alumni and guests discussed these and other issues with Jason STANLEY, Ph.D., Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University.

Moderated by Olga MALCHEVSKA, BBC Ukraine Desk Editor, USPS alumnus.

Social ambivalence is a hallmark of any transitional period – a period of collision between different political cultures. This ambivalence is similar in many post-Soviet countries – our hybrid identities corrupt every aspect of our lives. We strive to gain a foothold in the new world, but it is extremely difficult to find a basis for our agency. Nation, language, myths seem to be transitional pillars of our new identity in the context of escape from our imperial and nationalist personae. How to demythologize contemporary Ukrainian discourse? Has Ukraine’s identity changed after the Revolution of Dignity compared to other post-Soviet states? Is Ukraine taking the lead in escaping from its post-Soviet identity?

The discussion was attended by:

• Myroslav MARYNOVYCH, Vice Rector for the Mission of the Ukrainian Catholic University;
• Andrei SANNIKOV, Belarussian activist and politician;
• Mykola RYABCHUK, Ph.D., President of the Ukrainian Center of International PEN-Club.

Moderated by Andriy BAUMEYSTER, Ph.D., Associate Professor of the Department of Theoretical and Practical Philosophy of the Faculty of Philosophy, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.

Modern economic growth was mainly based on the combustion of fossil fuels. Countries couldn’t avoid poverty if they had no access to oil, coal and natural gas. The atmospheric CO2 is increasing every year, and 2016 was the hottest year ever recorded. In addition, the population of the Earth is growing faster than ever, and due to the development of technologies, the humanity faces new challenges of unemployment. However, the humanity responds to these events with a mixture of denial, avoidance, and accusation. There is considerable uncertainty about what will happen to the world as we know it. How will humanity respond? Are we ready for what we have created? – USPS community spoke about the fate of the world with Timothy DYSON, Ph.D., Professor of Population Studies at the London School of Economics.

Moderator: Olena MASLYUKIVSKA-SAMBERG, Ph.D., Program Analyst in Environment at UNDP Ukraine, USPS alumnus.

– NewFashionZone Community (Maria TEREKHOVA);
– International Music Festival FAINE MISTO; Educational and Analytical Center for Community Development (Maksym CHERKASHYN);
– #SOSFuture (Kateryna SMAGLIY);
– Batteries, Give up! (Lyudmila KOLOSOVSKA);
– It’sInterestingHere! (TutTsikavo!) (Oleksandr SHATKOVSKYI);
– Ukrainian Institute for the Future (Anatoliy AMELIN);
– Pirogov First Volunteer Mobile Hospital (FVMH) (Gennadiy DRUZENKO);
– Public holding GROUP OF INFLUENCE (HRUPA VPLYVU) (Tetyana DURNEVA);
– Competition ‘The Best Public Initiative of Ukraine’ (Pavlo PUSHCHENKO);
– Initiative E+: I See Hope, Children’s Camps (Dmytro STRYHUN).

The conference ended with the presentation of diplomas to the alumni of the XII Ukrainian School of Political Studies. Igor KOHUT and Svitlana MATVIIENKO wished the alumni inspiration and motivation for new achievements.

Photo credit: Oleksandr Kovalenko, Arsen Fedosenko, and Oksana Sushko

This year the Conference was made possible thanks to:

On December 06, 2017 the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center (2, Khreshchatyk Str.) hosted a presentation of the Policy Paper “Concept of ‘End-to-End’ Legislative Process”.

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.

The event was attended by:

• MP Dmytro Lubinets, Secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Rules of Parliamentary Procedure and Support to Work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;
• Oleksandr Zaslavskyi, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives.

During the 4th and 5th sessions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the VIII convocation, 1506 bills were registered, of which only 12% have been approved. This testifies to the fact that the parliament is overwhelmed by the “legislative tsunami”, i.e. a situation where so many bills are registered that deputies are physically unable to deal with them.

The ease with which MPs of Ukraine can register bills, regular violations of parliamentary procedures, lack of established long-term planning practices and stable communication between the legislative power actors result in the wide-ranging chaos of policymaking that hinders Ukraine’s sustainable and steady development.

Thus, the development of an effective system for policy formulation, approval, harmonization, assessment, and review remains extremely topical for both the political leadership and Ukrainian society as a whole.

The policy paper “Concept of ‘End-to-End’ Legislative Process” contains an analysis of existing practices, an overview of international experience, as well as proposals as to the concept of the “end-to-end” legislative process reform focused on strengthening coordination between legislative initiative actors. This is set out in the first recommendation of 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.

MP Dmytro Lubinets, Secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Rules of Parliamentary Procedure and Support to Work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, argues that “legislative spam” is a result of every MP’s desire to submit his personal legislative initiative, because for the public perceives the number of bills registered by an MP as the indicator of his effectiveness. One way out of this situation is to restrict the legislative initiative so that a bill could be submitted only by a group of MPs consisting of at least as many persons as the smallest faction of the current convocation of the Verkhovna Rada.

According to Mr. Lubinets, one of the factors undermining the effectiveness of the legislative process is political PR – a situation where committee hearings (especially when attended by the media) turn into a political show instead of a meaningful discussion. This results in significant delays in the process of reviewing bills, taking years for a bill to be submitted to the session hall after its registration. As a result, a large number of critically important draft laws are ping-ponged from one deputy committee to another for years. Another problem is posed by the process of considering amendments when amendments already approved for voting are again put to vote in the session hall by MPs.

Presenting the study, Oleksandr Zaslavskyi, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, pointed out that from October 2015 to January 2016, European Parliament’s needs assessment mission headed by Pat Cox had been working in the Verkhovna Rada and had come up with the Report and Roadmap on Internal Reform and Capacity-Building for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. On March 17, 2016, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the Resolution based on this document containing 52 recommendations for improvement of the work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in terms of its institutional capacity, improvement of the quality of the legislative process, ensuring compliance of the legislation with the EU regulations, etc. The first and most important recommendation is to develop an “end-to-end” concept of the legislative process.

The policy paper “Concept of ‘End-to-End’ Legislative Process” examines the legislative process in the context of communication of legislative initiative entities. Special attention is given to the problem of delimitation of the powers of legislative initiative entities, as well as gradual disturbance of the balance of the constitutionally mandated design of policy development. The study analyzes the mechanisms of cooperation of legislative initiative entities in the legislative process, as well as observance of procedures for consideration of bills. It examines the role of committees and mechanisms for monitoring, assessing and reviewing approved decisions. Much attention is given to alternative variants of improving the legislative process.

Mr. Zaslavskyi elaborated on the changes needed to improve the legislative process “end-to-end”, including:

• drafting and adopting the Law “On Regulations” involving the introduction of relevant amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine in order to ensure the effective distribution of the sphere of regulation of laws and by-laws;
• stipulation in the Rules of Procedure of the requirement to get the set number of 20 signatures of MPs for the registration of bills or introduction of letters of support for registered bills so that they could be considered in the session hall;
• limiting the number of bills to be submitted for discussion during the week, for example, to 10 bills;
• introduction of a mechanism of the political harmonization (first of all for compliance with the Coalition Agreement and the Government’s Program of Activity) of legislative initiatives;
• ensuring that Government should draft regulations for implementation of the law before the law is adopted as a whole or that Government should give a reasoned explanation why no such regulations need to be drafted;
• ensuring that any legislative initiative should include a monitoring and evaluation plan approved by the Main Committee of the Verkhovna Rada;
• introduction of a single platform for all legislative initiative entities to register, log and track all regulations.

The event involved 10 procedural discussions aimed at promoting the implementation of parliamentary reform.

The discussion covered the following issues:

1. Analysis of current practices and international experience in regulating the parliamentary service.
2. The problem of creating a parliamentary service. Principles of reform, foundation of functioning, guarantees of activity.
3. Legislation on parliamentary service: the preferred format:

• a separate law;
• a section of the law on civil service.

Presenting the paper, Tetyana Chernukha, Program Coordinator of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, drew attention to the principles of reforming the parliamentary service, including reinforcement of the institutional autonomy of the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; development of a staffing strategy of the Secretariat; codification of internal parliamentary policies; and drafting of the law “On Regulatory Legal Acts”.

Outlining the functions of the parliamentary service of Ukraine and its role in decision-making, Ms. Chernukha noted that the VRU Secretariat carried out organizational, expert and analytical, financial and technical support of the work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; prepared draft decisions important in planning the work of the VRU (i.e. estimates, plans of legislative work, draft agenda, draft assessment of bills for the main committees, draft opinions of the Scientific and Expert Department and Legal Department, and registration of draft laws).

Ms. Chernukha emphasized that based on the results of the survey of Secretariat employees (anonymous poll of the expert department and committee secretariats), 100% of respondents indicated that their political views did not affect their work in the VRU). However, 40 % of respondents noted that they had witnessed political pressure on their colleagues.

According to Ms. Chernukha, the possible ways of reforming the parliamentary service include designing an effective mechanism that would enable the Main Scientific and Expert Department and the Main Legal Department to suspend inadequate bills; development and introduction of a mechanism of protection against political pressure on employees of the relevant departments; as well as creating an anonymous online platform for employees to complain about political pressure on themselves or their colleagues. Each complaint should be dealt with and investigated.

Having analyzed the current personnel policy of the VRU Secretariat, Ms. Chernukha proposed a number of ways to improve the work of the parliamentary service, including elaboration of clear job descriptions; standardization of the form and establishment of clear-cut requirements for the expert opinions and legal reviews prepared by the Secretariat, the relevant job descriptions must contain references to them; classification of professional positions; appropriate training of the members of the competition commissions; elaboration of test tasks, which should vary depending on the job description and the grade level of the job. The selection of the VRU Secretariat employees and their further work may greatly benefit from the following: arrangement of selection planning so that specific requirements should be checked at each stage of the selection; reducing the scope of subjective assessments of commission members by introducing answer-keys to situational tasks; improving data collection and reporting on human resources in the civil service with a view to effectively supporting HR planning, HR management activities and monitoring can also significantly improve the process of selecting the staff of the Verkhovna Rada staff and their further work.

As of today, 37 % of the polled representatives of the Verkhovna Rada Secretariat state that they do not think that the regulations and procedures of the organization of the work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine are clear and understandable. 52 % of the representatives of the Verkhovna Rada Secretariat emphasize that they do not consider the legislative process in the VRU to be of high quality and effective (at the same time, 48 % consider it to be sufficiently effective).

According to Ms. Chernukha, the measures aimed at improving the legal framework for the work of the VRU Secretariat include consolidation of the legal and regulatory framework for the documents regulating the work of the VRU Secretariat into a single set of internal rules, including those on the implementation of personnel policy (Roadmap on Internal Reform and Capacity-Building for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine); as well as adoption of a law on regulatory legal acts that could facilitate the regulation of the status of regulatory acts, as well as acts adopted by officials of the VRU Secretariat.