The Verkhovna Rada adopted the first Legislative Agenda (LA) in 2020. This instrument was designed to facilitate the planning of legislative work, enhance the quality of draft laws, and reduce the number of draft laws submitted to the Verkhovna Rada. However, Parliament has not introduced effective tools for coordinating, monitoring, and evaluating the implementation of these Agendas. Although committees submit reports to the Verkhovna Rada, these reports are not publicised, and no analysis of the reasons for the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of these tasks is undertaken.
Findings from the Monitoring of the Implementation of the Legislative Agenda for 2024
The Legislative Agenda for 2024 lists 481 tasks, 95 of which are focused on European integration. The vast number of tasks in the Agenda, especially given the true capacity of the Verkhovna Rada to pass laws, does not contribute to its implementation. According to estimates by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives (ALI), only 60 tasks from the Agenda, or 12%, have been completed. Only one in four laws was adopted by the Verkhovna Rada as part of the Legislative Agenda. Taking into account all performance indicators of the Legislative Agenda, such as the timeliness of new draft laws, compliance with deadlines for consideration, etc., only 11 tasks can be classified as fully compliant with the Agenda.
293 tasks remain unfulfilled, which accounts for 61% of the total. There are two reasons why certain tasks were not completed: 1) the responsible initiator did not submit a new draft law to fulfil the task; 2) the Verkhovna Rada did not consider the registered draft law during the reporting period.
The Legislative Agenda for 2024 is government-centric, which means that the government must register or has already registered most of the draft laws that need to be adopted to fulfil the tasks. The non-submission of new draft laws by the Cabinet of Ministers is one of the reasons for a low level of implementation of the Agenda.
ALI’s monitoring also examines how committees implement the Agenda, as they submit proposals for its formulation, and how the main committees review draft laws registered for implementation under the Agenda. On average, each committee is responsible for implementing 22 tasks, with a median of 16 tasks.
The five committees with the largest number of tasks are responsible for implementing half of the Agenda. The Committee on Law Enforcement has the most tasks in the Legislative Agenda (64 tasks). The Committee on Finance has completed the most tasks (18 tasks).
Recommendations
Currently, the Legislative Agenda, as a document designed to ensure a planned legislative process, plays only a nominal role, not least because of insufficient coordination between legislative initiators and weak parliamentary control.
There are some shortcomings in the preparation of the Agenda, such as setting a deadline The Verkhovna Rada approves the Legislative Agenda at the beginning of each regular session, which takes place on the first Tuesday of February. for submitting new draft laws in January 2024, even before its adoption. This means that the legislative initiator must register the draft law ‘in advance’ within the framework of the Agenda. Another example is setting the deadline for submitting new draft laws in December 2024, which is rather short-sighted, as the Verkhovna Rada is unlikely to have enough time to review and vote on the relevant draft law.
The approach to preparing the Legislative Agenda and the role of committees in its implementation needs to be revised. Legislative Agendas containing hundreds of tasks and draft laws do not reflect the performance indicators of the Verkhovna Rada: the number of laws adopted, the average time taken to consider draft laws, the activity of committees in preparing opinions on them, etc.
