Why is a “turbo mode” of the parliament impossible?

After the first quarter of the Verkhovna Rada, the figures showed that the “turbo mode of the parliament” is a myth! And the results of our two monitorings for 1-2 and 3 sessions of the parliament only confirmed this. The tsunami of “legislative spam” is declining, the number of laws passed in the first year of the ninth convocation did not differ significantly from predecessors – members of parliament of the VIII convocation.

Monitoring of the first quarter of the IX convocation

Analysis of the work of the parliament for the 3rd session of the IX convocation

In particular, for the period of 1-2 sessions of the IX convocation (from 08/29/2019 to 01/17/2020) a total of 155 laws were adopted. During the same calendar period of the VIII convocation (from 11/27/2014 to 04/24/2015), MPs managed to pass not much less – 140 laws even though the Verkhovna Rada of the VIII convocation spent the first month of work on forming a coalition.

The third session of the new parliament seemed completely different, and therefore the annual “results” of the Verkhovna Rada are even lower than their predecessors in quantitative terms. But we emphasize that the annual calendar period of the two convocations in this matter is methodologically incorrect to compare – quarantine and pandemic are a significant error for analysis.

In general, the effectiveness of the work of the Verkhovna Rada cannot be measured by the number of bills, adopted laws, and hours spent in the session hall. It is difficult to distinguish between quantitative indicators and the quality of parliamentary work. Moreover, there can hardly be a system of clear KPIs in parliament to measure its performance.

The coordinated functioning of the state mechanism, which is fundamental for the country’s development, depends not on the fact that a certain law has been adopted but on all decision-making bodies’ coordinated interaction.

The state is a system. And a democratic state means procedures and their observance to keep the system balanced.

“Legislative turbo mode” and democracy – these concepts are incompatible, in principle. The procedure for adopting the law is described in the Rules of Procedure. And it involves a rather long process of discussion, refinement, weighing all the pros and cons. Any attempt to speed up this procedure, to fulfill the “five-year plan” for the number of laws in one parliamentary session will lead to a violation of the Rules of Procedure and, consequently, of the declared democratic principles. This is not even about the quality of bills produced by the subjects of the legislative initiative.

The eighth and ninth convocations operated at the marginal capacity of the law-making process. This is not a feature of the new parliament, but only a marketing move, which was coined by the apt name “turbo mode”. The “turbo regime” of the parliament did not happen – and it’s for the best.