The Agency for Legislative Initiatives continually monitors the progress (and regress) of parliamentary reform in Ukraine. We currently have an update for you for 2020. Oleksandr Zaslavskyy, Director of the Analytical Department of the Agency, told during the Ukraine Reform Conference 2020/2021 (#URC2020) what happened to the parliamentary reform last year.
We have the results: from 2016 to 2019, less than 42% of the reform and recommendations of the Roadmap were implemented. When the Verkhovna Rada of the ninth convocation was authorized, we suggested to the MPs to continue the implementation of the reform:
- review 52 Roadmap recommendations;
- adopt the Law “On Peculiarities of Civil Service in the Office of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine”;
- develop and adopt a Code of Conduct for MPs.
None of these three recommendations have been implemented in a year. However, the reform continued in some respects.
- For example, the number of committees was reduced to 23, which was one of the recommendations.
- Meetings of representatives of parliamentary factions and groups in the format of Jean Monnet Dialogues continued.
- Work on the draft law “On Legal Acts” and the draft law on the opposition and the relationship between the coalition and the opposition has begun.
- The first audit of the Accounting Chamber on the activities of the Verkhovna Rada is done. Of course, the audit results are not very positive, but the very fact of its conduct is the implementation of the Roadmap recommendation.
One of the main problems affecting the implementation of parliamentary reform is the imbalance of power. With the declared parliamentary-presidential form of governing, the real influence on the government’s formation and its policy is not the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, but the President. How to further implement parliamentary reform, and what mistakes should be corrected?
Read our brief for more detail.
