Plenary Time. 12th Session of the Verkhovna Rada of the IX Convocation

Unit summary

1. During the 12th session, 65 hours were spent considering draft laws in the session hall, the highest number for autumn sessions since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
2. 92% of the plenary time in the 12th session was spent on consideration of draft laws initiated by the Servant of the People faction, the government and the President. This share remains consistently high (over 90%) throughout the 9th convocation, with a record high of 98.5% during the 10th session.
3. Draft laws with both readings in the 12th session were considered for an average of 77 minutes. The time for consideration of such draft laws continued to increase during the 12th session, while the 12th session exceeded the time before the full-scale invasion in terms of the median time (28 minutes).

Starting from the 10th session, the number of discussions of draft laws in the session hall has been increasing, and they have been lasting longer. Now, the indicators are increasingly reminiscent of the times before the full-scale invasion. There are three main reasons for this: (1) a decrease in the number of draft laws with consensus support, (2) a gradual easing of information restrictions on the coverage of the Verkhovna Rada’s work, and (3) a gradual increase in the perception of security in the Parliament building.

Only data related to the time spent considering draft laws were used to calculate the plenary time indicators. The time for registration, the announcement of inquiries, “government hour”, resolutions, etc., were not included. 

Plenary time

MPs spent more than 65 hours of plenary time considering draft laws during the 12th session. This is much more than in the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th sessions. Therefore, the total amount of plenary time is gradually returning to the normal regime.

The amount of plenary time spent began to gradually increase starting from the 9th session. Thus, MPs spent 51 hours of plenary time considering draft laws during the 9th session, almost as much as they did during the 7th session (the first six months of the war). The 10th session saw an increase in plenary time (60 hours), 31 hours more than the previous autumn 8th session. In general, it is interesting that during the 10th session (the autumn session, which lasts shorter than the spring one), there was more plenary time than during the 9th session. The 11th session lasted 76 hours, which is 1.5 times more than the 9th session. The time spent on the consideration of draft laws during the 11th session is the highest during the full-scale invasion. A total of 65 hours were spent in the 12th session, which is the highest for an autumn session during the full-scale invasion.

The trend of a gradual increase in the time spent on consideration of draft laws in the session hall shows that with each new session, the Verkhovna Rada’s working regime is increasingly resembling the pre-martial law era: there are more discussions, and they are becoming more time-consuming. However, the pre-war figures are sometimes 1.5 to 2 times higher than the highest performance indicators of the Verkhovna Rada during martial law.

During the 12th session, 92% of the plenary time was devoted to considering draft laws of the government, namely the Servant of the People faction, the government, and the President. The situation when the discussion of the government’s draft laws takes up more than 90% of the plenary time has been maintained almost throughout the entire 9th convocation (93% for the 9th session and 91.6% for the 11th session). The 10th session showed record results, when 98.5% of the total plenary time was spent on the government’s draft laws, leaving only 1.5% for the minority’s draft laws. It is important to note that one of the peculiarities of the 10th session was the record-low number of laws passed (for the entire 9th convocation).

Plenary time for laws adopted in the first reading and in their entirety (seconds)

Session	Average	Median
4	509 sec (8.5 min)	182 sec (3 min)
5	391 sec (6.5 min)	118 sec (2 min)
6	701 sec (12 min)	901 sec (15 min)
7	151 sec (2.5 min)	42 sec (0.7 min)
8	260 sec (4 min)	86 sec (1.5 min)
9	302 sec (5 min)	134 sec (2 min)
10	418 sec (7 min)	185 sec (3 min)
11	612 sec (10 min)	668 sec (11 min)
12	536 sec (9 min)	568 sec (9.5 min)

The amount of plenary time spent discussing draft laws gradually increased starting from the 7th session. The time spent on the consideration of draft laws in the first reading gradually increased until the 11th session, while the 12th session showed a certain decrease in both the average and median time. 

During martial law, each new session demonstrated that the Verkhovna Rada was gradually returning to its pre-war work format. The results for the 11th and 12th sessions had generally reached the level that existed before the full-scale invasion when about half of the relevant draft laws were considered for more than 10 minutes.

Plenary time for laws adopted in the second reading and in their entirety (the first reading of which was before the 12th session)

Session	Average	Median
4	1,003 sec (17 min)	258 sec (4 min)
5	3,527 sec (59 min)	139 sec (2 min)
6	1,439 sec (24 min)	408 sec (7 min)
7	449 sec (7 min)	141 sec (2 min)
8	440 sec (7 min)	79 sec (1 min)
9	872 sec (14.5 min)	193 sec (3 min)
10	1,226 sec (20 min)	477 sec (8 min)
11	834 sec (14 min)	471 sec (8 min)
12	866 sec (14 min)	434 sec (7 min)

The time spent on draft laws that were considered only in the second reading during the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th sessions increased significantly compared to the 7th and 8th sessions. The average and median for the 9th session are almost twice as high as for the 8th session. Starting from the 10th session, the speed of consideration of draft laws in the second reading began to normalise and return to the level before the full-scale invasion. The 11th and 12th sessions continued this trend. Moreover, the consideration of draft laws was even longer than before 2022 in some cases.

Plenary time for laws with both readings during the 12th session

Session	Average	Median
4	2,000 sec (33 min)	1,423 sec (24 min)
5	2,178 sec (36 min)	1,178 sec (20 min)
6	4,851 sec (81 min)	1,556 sec (26 min)
7	798 sec (13 min)	367 sec (6 min)
8	910 sec (15 min)	285 sec (5 min)
9	920 sec (15 min)	547 sec (9 min)
10	4,830 sec (80 min)	830 sec (14 min)
11	1,714 sec (29 min)	881 sec (15 min)
12	4,593 sec (77 min)	1,705 sec (28 min)

The draft laws with both readings in the 9th session were considered for a slightly longer period of time than the 7th and 8th sessions. The 10th, 11th, and 12th sessions continued this growth. As of the 10th session, the average time spent on the draft laws with both readings was 80 minutes, the second-highest result in the 9th convocation (the highest result in the 6th session was 81 minutes). During the 12th session, the increase in the time for consideration of such draft laws continued, while the 12th session exceeded even the time before the full-scale invasion by many indicators (including the median).

Thus, the format of considering draft laws in the session hall in the 10th, 11th, and 12th sessions is increasingly reminiscent of the times before the full-scale invasion and even exceeds them by some indicators. The reasons for the gradual increase in the time spent on consideration of draft laws may be as follows:

1. First, a decreased number of draft laws with consensus support.
2. Second, the gradual easing of existing information restrictions. In 2024, steps were taken to return to open meetings, and journalists were allowed to enter the parliament. As a result, there are more opportunities to use the parliamentary rostrum to communicate political positions on draft laws, which was meaningless given the parliament’s information closure.
3. Third, the image of Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups in the centre of Kyiv and Russian troops on its outskirts began to fade, so the perception of the level of security in the Parliament building changed.

The top 5 longest draft laws in terms of the amount of time they took to be considered in the plenary hall can be found in Annex 6. 

• Annex 6. Time of consideration of adopted draft laws in the session hall

  List of 5 draft laws that took the longest to be considered in the plenary hall.

  Draft laws	Minutes (hours) spent on consideration of draft laws in the plenary hall
  Draft Law on the State Budget of Ukraine for 2025 No. 12000 of 14 September 2024	592 min (9.9 hours)
  Draft Law on Amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine on Peculiarities of Taxation during Martial Law No. 11416-д of 30 August 2024	474 min (7.9 hours)
  Draft Law on Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On the State Budget of Ukraine for 2024” on Financial Support of the Security and Defence Sector No. 11417 of 18 July 2024	175 min (2.9 hours)
  Draft Law on Amendments to the Budget Code of Ukraine on Updating and Improving Certain Provisions No. 12245 of 25 November 2024	160 min (2.7 hours)
  Draft Law on Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On the Accounting Chamber” and Certain Other Legislative Acts of Ukraine No. 10044-д of 16 September 2024	119 min (2 hours)