These days, the Agency for Legislative Initiatives has been participating in meetings with Pat Cox, former President of the European Parliament and Head of the Mission to promote the reform of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Discussions were devoted to further steps to continue parliamentary reform during the full-scale war.
The reform of the Ukrainian Parliament began in 2015 with the launch of the Assessment Mission of the European Parliament under the leadership of Pat Cox. The Mission has developed a Roadmap with specific recommendations on how to strengthen the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine institutionally and solve the existing problems of Ukrainian parliamentarism – the lack of political dialogue, constant “legislative spam” from MPs and replacing the quality of legislative initiatives with quantity, the weakness of the Apparatus of the VRU and the lack of understanding the importance of this structure and parliamentary officials.
The Agency for Legislative Initiatives supports the parliamentary reform from the very beginning and monitors its implementation. As of mid-2021, we estimate that the reform of the parliament has been completed less than half. And although at the beginning of 2022 the priorities of both the Verkhovna Rada and the entire Ukrainian society have changed, we are convinced that the reform of the parliament must be continued.
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is the centre of Ukrainian democracy. Even in the darkest times, we cannot allow the institutional capacity of the parliament to be forgotten and the democratic gains of the last 30 years to be jeopardized. Of course, parliamentary reform during the war cannot be so comprehensive, but there are concrete actions, the implementation of which will strengthen the Verkhovna Rada and, as a result, will help Ukraine to endure and retain the support of partners.
During the full-scale invasion, we propose to concentrate, first of all, on the following areas of reform:
Business continuity management and disaster recovery planning
Before the start of the full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian parliament was definitely not ready for the challenges of wartime. If the parliament could not, however chaotically, continue its work in February-March 2022, the capacity of the Ukrainian authorities in the eyes of partners and enemies would be in serious danger.
Therefore, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine should have an appropriate plan to ensure business continuity management and disaster recovery planning in case of crisis situations. The Ukrainian parliament should develop of such a plan, taking into account the existing experience of the VRU after February 24, 2022, as well as the experience of parliaments of other countries with similar plans.
New Digital Strategy
The fact that the VRU continued to perform its functions after the beginning of the full-scale invasion is largely due to the achievements of the VRU Apparatus, and in particular the Computerized Systems Department, which was, just one example, able to provide the remote and secured functions of various systems and subsystems very quickly. This is the result of the implementation of the previous digital strategy.
Now is the time to create a new, more up-to-date strategy that will take into account experience with the most modern technologies, including machine translation.
Parliamentary Сode of Сonduct
At the end of 2022, draft law No. 8327 was registered in the parliament, which introduces the Code of Conduct for MPs with clear principles, rules, and, most importantly, sanctions for their violation, as well as mechanisms for monitoring their compliance. The Agency for Legislative Initiatives was also involved in preparing this draft law.
The adoption of the Code of Conduct is an extremely important step both for the Verkhovna Rada as a sign of the independence and legitimacy of the institution, and for our partners and allies, because it is a direct recommendation of the Roadmap of Parliamentary Reform, OSCE/ODIHR, GRECO and the Council of Europe.
Development of parliamentary diplomacy
With the beginning of the full-scale invasion, every member of parliament had turned into an ambassador of the Ukrainian people. At the same time, there are several issues that require an adequate solution now, so that the general public diplomacy of Ukraine would become more coherent.
Improving the quality of legislation
The low level of expert-analytical support and, as a result, not very well written legislative initiatives, which then turn into conflicts in legislation or simply non-working laws, is a long-standing problem of the Ukrainian parliament.
Currently, MPs lack the practice of assessing the legislative impact of draft laws before their adoption, as well as understanding why this analysis is needed.
At the same time, improving the quality of laws produced by the parliament is a priority task now, both so that wartime legislative initiatives do not undermine the legitimacy of the Verkhovna Rada, and in order to create a quality framework for future legislative initiatives related to the restoration of post-war Ukraine.
We are grateful to the current convocation of the Verkhovna Rada for their willingness to continue parliamentary reform even during a full-scale war, and to Pat Cox and international partners, including National Democratic Institute in Ukraine, for supporting important changes and dialogue with civil society.
The Agency for Legislative Initiatives will always support the Ukrainian Parliament on this path.
