Ukraine’s acquisition of the EU candidate status started a large-scale reform process in many spheres of Ukrainian life, and the parliament was no exception. The legislative process is characterised by chronic problems that impair the law-making process at all stages of work. The chaos of the legislative cycle results in low-quality legislative initiatives, which then affect changes in all spheres of life. However, the progress of the reform can be described similarly: changes are implemented unevenly and abruptly. Last year, we returned to the parliamentary reform again, so we offer to review key changes that took place in the work of the Ukrainian Parliament during 2023.
The current stage of parliamentary reform started in 2016 when the European Parliament’s mission presented the Roadmap for internal reform to increase the institutional capacity of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada. At the same time, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a relevant resolution where the recommendations of the European Parliament’s mission were recognised as the basis for subsequent changes. However, the process slowed down over time. According to the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, progress was only 4% from 2019 to 2021 compared to a total of 45%. The main part of the work was performed only after the resolution was adopted, and no large-scale changes happened until recently.
They returned to the reform again after the beginning of the full-scale invasion. In particular, in 2022, at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano, a plan for Ukraine’s recovery was presented, with an analysis of the necessary reforms in different spheres. These reforms included the public administration sector, where the parliamentary reform stood out.
Perhaps the most important problem that was attempted to be resolved during 2023 within the framework of the parliamentary reform was the low quality of the large number of registered draft laws. As stated in the Recovery Plan for Ukraine in the field of public administration, “submitting countless conceptually ill-considered, poorly executed and unsubstantiated draft laws, forces the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, its bodies and services of the Office of the Verkhovna Rada to spend considerable time, effort and money to properly process the initiatives, which, taking into account their content, have no prospects of becoming laws.” The main changes in this field were related to accompanying documents and the adoption of by-laws.
Among other things, the law “On Law-Making Activity” adopted this year changes the requirements for accompanying documents. The green book, the impact assessment, and other documents are among the compulsory accompanying analytical documents stipulated by the legislative initiative entities. Thanks to this, the problems that need to be addressed will be identified more accurately, and the dialogue will move from the issue of “how to change” to “what to change.” This should fundamentally change the entire legislative process. The law will become effective after the end of martial law, but preparations for implementation of changes are already in progress.
Collaboration between the Cabinet of Ministers and the Verkhovna Rada is going on to improve the process of adoption of the by-laws. In fact, bylaws are currently being developed by the government after the adoption of the law. Therefore, their preparation for draft law adoption is not rational enough — the law may change significantly during adoption, so the work should be started all over again. After all, the situation in which the current law has had no by-laws regulating its implementation for a long time has become normal, and this does little good. That is why the possibility of the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers providing a list of laws that need to be amended in advance is being considered. At the same time, this practice has already been implemented for some draft laws, which now have relative lists.
Digitalisation was not the most important guarantee of stability of the Verkhovna Rada at the start of the full-scale invasion. Online meetings and electronic access to documentation enabled Parliamentary entities to function without considerable interruptions during difficult times. The development continues: in 2023, the Docflow in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (DC) was continuously optimised, particularly under increased workload and permanent monitoring. The hybrid data processing centre was created, which stipulates expansion and combination of ground infrastructure at the expense of cloud resources. All these decisions contributed to creating a secure environment, with the Employees of the Verkhovna Rada Office and MPs constantly having access to work processes.
The parliamentary reform does not end here; processes that were started in 2023 can yield positive results in 2024. Amendments to accompanying documents were developed. This way, a comparative note is currently performing its function just formally: in fact, there is no unified system of requirements as to its content. For this reason, processing draft laws requires considerable resources from both the Office of the Verkhovna Rada and MPs. Thus, requirements for explanatory notes were updated in 2023.
In addition, the Interdepartmental Group on Improving Law Drafting Work, Assessing Legislative Impact and Improving the Results of Law Implementation started functioning. Its members include officials from the Cabinet of Ministers and the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada, as well as representatives from public organisations, including the Agency for Legislative Initiatives. High-quality collaboration between branches of the government and engagement of independent experts ensures relevant progress in the parliamentary reform.
In 2023, the parliamentary reform returned, and the progress can be called quite tangible. However, it was not without a couple of flies in the ointment: much less productive years hid behind the fruitful 2023, during which the parliamentary reform almost stopped. The only thing is obvious: the reform process lacks systematisation. Without it, we are going to observe jumps followed by increasingly longer pauses. The effectiveness of the previous year in implementing the reform can easily be erased by the subsequent years of stagnation. That is why it is critical to implement changes in 2024. Successful parliamentary reform depends on improving reforms and other areas of life, as high-quality legislation is the key to development, sustainable democracy, and European integration.
