According to the fact that constitutional reform 2004 didn’t have a desirable result – formation of a well-balanced system of power – the idea of a new constitutional review became more and more popular among politicians and experts. This review is supposed to form more efficient authorities’ structure, clarify political responsibility of decisions makers and help to solve problems, which were not taken to account in 2004, particularly – reformation of the system of local power, administrative and territorial division and competence of the Constitutional Court.

Despite common understanding of defects of the Constitution in its current redaction, politicians and experts have different views upon the constitutional reform. Accordingly, there is no unity of views about the most optimal constitutional amendments mechanisms: some politicians and experts propose to review the Constitution in the order that is prescribed by it, while others support the idea of national referendum conducting.

So, the aim of the conference was to define with the help of different politicians, representatives of leading think tanks, scientists and international specialists which constitutional amendments mechanisms and limits correspond to the main current political problems, collective interests and provide consolidation of society.

The conference consisted of two plenary sessions:

• Constitutional reform: content and limits of constitutional transformations in the context of the interests of society, authority and opposition
• Constitutional amendments mechanisms: problems and solutions

Materials of the conference prepared by experts of the Agency for legislative initiatives

On 16-18 February 2007, Odessa hosted the Public Forum “Constitutional Reform: the View of the Civil Society”. The discussion was initiated and organised by the Agency for Legislative Initiates (Kyiv), the Council of Europe, and a number of expert institutions of Donetsk, Lutsk, Sumy, Zaporizhzhya, Luhansk, and Kherson. The Forum was also supported by Joint Programme of the Council of Europe and the European Commission “Support to Democratic Processes in Southern Caucuses and Ukraine”.

The Forum aimed to ensure a possibility to discuss the results and further priorities and prospects for the development of the constitutional reform in Ukraine, as well as to prepare recommendations of the next steps to be taken to secure effective functioning of public authorities and local self-governance bodies in Ukraine.

In particular, the following issues were discussed:

• Constitutional Reform in Ukraine: Assessment of Results;
• Prospects of Further Reform of the Public Authorities in Ukraine;
• New Format of Relations in the Parliament-President-Government Triangle:
• Constitutional Reform and Local Self-Governance.

The forum collected about 130 participants from 20 regions of Ukraine (90 participants and 35 media representatives):

1) NGO and think tank experts;
2) Members of local councils and political parties representatives;
3) Media;
4) Members of the Verkhovna Rada and other high level state authorities;
5) Representatives of the CoE Directorate General for Political Affairs and other international institutions.

Speakers

• Ihor KOHUT, Chairman of the Board, Agency for Legislative Initiatives;
• Oleksandr PROKOPENKO, Secretary of Odessa City Council;
• Mykola TYNDYUK, Deputy Head of the Odessa Regional Council;
• Plamen NIKOLOV, Adviser of the Directorate General of Political Affairs, Council of Europe;
• Vladyslav LUKYANOV, MP, Deputy Head of the Committee on State Building, Regional Policy and Local Governments;
• Thomas MARKERT, Deputy Secretary of the Venice Commission, Council of Europe;
• Anatoliy MATVIENKO, MP, First Deputy Head of the Committee on State Building, Regional Policy and Local Governments;
• Mykola KOZYUBRA, Member of the National Commission for Strengthening Democracy and Rule of Law, resigned judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, Doctor of Sciences in Law, Professor;
• Sergyi HRYNOVETSKYI, Member of the Odessa Regional Council;
• Sergio BARTOLE, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Trieste, substitute member of the Venice Commission;
• Volodymyr FESENKO, Director of the Center of Applied Political Studies «Penta»;
• Denys KOVRYZHENKO, Expert, Agency for Legislative Initiatives;
• Michel GUEGAN, Vice-Chair of the Institutional Committee, Chamber of Local Authorities, Congress of Local and Regional Authorities;
• Volodymyr SHAPOVAL, Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, resigned judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, Doctor of Sciences in Law, Professor;
• Anatoliy SELIVANOV, Representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, Doctor of Sciences in Law, Professor;
• Yuriy KLUCHKOVSKYI, MP;
• Victor TYMOSCHUK, Head of the Centre for Political and Legal Reforms;
• Taras CHORNOVIL, MP;
• Oleksiy HARAN, Professor of the National University Kyiv Mohyla Academy, School for Political Analyses;
• Oleksandr STARYNETS, Head of the Secretariat of the Socialist party faction in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Openning

At the Opening Ceremony, the Forum participants were welcomed by the organisers, representatives of Odesa authorities, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Council of Europe, and the Venice Commission. In his welcoming speech, Mr Ihor Kohut, Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiativesstressed how important it is to assess the results of the constitutional reform in Ukraine from the positions of the civil society, as well as emphasised the necessity of rational comprehension of the process whereby cooperation between different branches of power is formed and the new system of local self-governance is built in Ukraine. Mr Oleksandr Prokopenko, Secretary of Odesa City Council mentioned that the improvement of the local self-governance is the basis of democratic transformations, while its improper system generates social and political complications. Mr Mykola Tyndyuk, Deputy Chairman of Odesa City Council reminded that the people is the bearer of power in Ukraine, therefore the constitutional reform and definition of the legal framework of political responsibility shall be discussed not only by the politicians, but also the public in general; in this context, there is a need to pass the laws on the President of Ukraine, on the parliamentary opposition, as well as to amend the Cabinet of Ministers Act. Mr Plamen Nikolov, representative of the Directorate General for Political Affairs of the Council of Europe stressed the necessity of cooperation between public authorities and the civil society sector. Mr Vladyslav Lukiyanov,Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Public Authorities Development, Regional Policy, and Local Self-Governance pointed out that the main problem in the triangle of public authorities in Ukraine is not the issue of division of powers, but rather the correlation of rights and powers, which brings about the necessity to pass the laws on the status of a citizen and on central executive authorities, as well as make the necessary amendments to the Cabinet of Ministers Act. Mr Thomas Markert, Deputy Secretary of the Venice Commission recalled the history of cooperation between the Venice Commission and Ukraine and said that the democratic progress in the country were obvious; however, at the current moment there was a need to solve the problems of relations between public authorities and efficient division of powers.

Panel 1: “Constitutional Reform in Ukraine: Assessment of Results”

The main aim of the Plenary Session “Constitutional Reform in Ukraine: Assessment of Results” was to discuss the prospect of the constitutional reform in Ukraine, and to define the priorities of further transformations and steps to be made to ensure efficient functioning of public authorities and local self-governance in Ukraine.  The participants of the panel have agreed that the main aim of cooperation within the power triangle “the President – the Parliament – the Government” is unclear and unbalanced division of powers between the branches of powers. One of the preconditions for the solution of this problem is the local self-governance reform with due account of the subsidiarity principle.

MP Anatoliy Matvienko stressed that the main task of the constitutional reform is to ensure existence of responsible government system and stable society. Having analysed the history of the constitutional reform he noted that the calls for a new constitution threaten the lost of the achievements of the current one, therefore any further reforms shall aim to ensure the balance of powers and their division in order to eliminate the threat of war between the branches of power. In this context, one of the important mechanisms is the local self-governance reform which shall become the first step towards efficient and structured division of powers. Mr Matvienko also supported Bill No. 3207 (new No. 0900) and blamed those who frighten the President by the loss of powers due to its adoption.

Mr Mykola Kozyubra, Head of the State and Legal Sciences Department of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, said that different political forces had had different motives when they had been backing the constitutional reform. The main problem, however, was that the political elite was not striving to observe the constitutional provisions, “to live in accordance with the Constitution”. Therefore, it is not possible to say that the 1996 Constitution has exhausted itself, and therefore its further refer shall be aiming not at the redistribution of powers between the power centre, but rather decrease of the number of discretional powers, i.e. those that can be exercised by a certain authority on its own.

According to Mr Sergio Bartol, Professor of Constitutional Law of the University of Trieste and Deputy Chairman of the Venice Commission, the studies of the Ukrainian system of power performed by the Venice Commission have become a constant element of constitutional debates. The main conclusion proposed for discussion concerned the danger of direct implementation of the powers of public authorities envisaged by the constitutional reform. In the speaker’s opinion, the balance of power and prevention of its concentration in the hands of the executive powers can be achieved through distribution of power at two levels: vertical which envisages its division into legislative, executive, and judicial, and horizontal which includes the separation of powers between the state and the local self-governance.

Mr Serhiy Hrynevetskyi, Member of Odesa Oblast Council stressed the necessity to separate parliamentary and local elections in time, to abolish the system of proportional representations at elections to oblast and district councils, to introduce a bicameral parliament and election of the heads of oblasts and districts in order to improve the efficiency of the operation of local self-governance bodies.

Mr Volodymr Fesenko, Director of the Penta Centre for Applied Political Studies underlined that even though the discussion of the constitutional reform is focused on the issues of the constitutional law, the process of transformations is politico-legal. Having assessed positive and negative consequences of the constitutional amendments, as well as have outlined the present day problems, the speaker analysed the possible scenarios of further transformations which shall envisage a comprehensive character of amendments to the legislation, improvement of the operation procedure of the Constitutional Court, and termination of war between the main actors of the constitutional process.

Mr Denys Kovryzhenko, expert of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives analysed the consequences of the constitutional reform and outlined the further steps in the process of reform of the system of powers in Ukraine, which shall concern regulatory and institutional transformations.

Panel 2: “Prospects of Further Reform of the Public Authorities in Ukraine”

Participants of the Plenary Session “Prospects of Further Reform of Public Authorities in Ukraine” discussed the prospects and priorities of the constitutional reform in Ukraine. The participants defined the general vectors and specific steps to be made for the further reform of the constitutional system; in particular they include amendment of only those constitutional provisions that need to be objectively changed (the local self-governance reform, balancing of powers etc) on the basis of the sole reconciled concept; broader involvement of the public into the process of political decision-making; improvement of transparency of the operation of public authorities at all levels; adoption of laws that will bring the system of public authorities, their functions and powers closer to the democratic standards; further strengthening of the parliamentary oversight powers; implementation of the administrative reform; development of a reconciled concept of the administrative and territorial reform and local self-governance reform; and reform of law-enforcement authorities.

Mr Michel GUEGAN, Vice Chairman of the Institutional Committee of the Local Authorities Chamber of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe mentioned that the way of democratic development of the local self-governance shall envisage that the smallest local self-governance subject should realise their role. The main problem in Ukraine is lack of political will necessary for the development of local self-governance due to the fear of responsibility and personal interests of politicians.

Outlining further steps in the process of constitutional reform, Mr Volodymyr Shapoval, Representative of the President of Ukraine to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and a retired judge of the Constitutional Court stressed the necessity to separate the powers of local state administrations and local self-governance bodies, to define the powers of regional self-governance, to provide the local self-governance with its financial basis, to implement the administrative and territorial reform, as well as to set up efficient mechanisms for the conduct of local referenda. According to the speaker, there is a need for deep and systemic constitutional amendments, otherwise there will only be sporadic attempts to solve individual issues in which only certain people are interested in. However, adoption of the law on the President is not to the point, as the status of the head of state is defined by the Constitution, and therefore the regulation subject of the law on the President is unclear.

Mr Anatoliy Selivanov, Permanent Representative of the Verkhovna Rada in the Constitutional Court described the constitutional reform as the result of negotiations and a political compromise, since it was done not only for the government powers, but also for the transfer to a new election system, i.e. the changes had a common constitutional and legal nature. Further transformations shall concern the functioning of the local self-governance system, the judiciary, and the public prosecution system.

Defining the context of the constitutional reform, MP Yuriy Klyuchkovskyi stressed the necessity to interpret many new constitutional provisions that adversely affect the efficiency of the government system. By their nature, the powers of the President shall find themselves in the area of executive authorities. In Ukraine, however, this area is rather fragmented, since due to the functioning of the institution lf parliamentary majority, the positions of the parliament and the government actually coincide. In addition, he mentioned that adoption of Bill No. 0900 (3207-1) on the local self-governance reform is dangerous, as it does not meet the need of the Ukrainian society at all.

Mr Victor Tymoshchuk, Head of the Centre for Political and Legal Reforms said that the lack of balance in the system of public authorities is the main problem generated by the constitutional reform, having stressed that adoption of Bill No. 0900 (3207-1) will not be able to solve this problem, since it will make high quality and equal provision of public services to the people impossible. Regional self-governance can be established only if there is a strong basic level of local self-governance; therefore the local self-governance reform shall begin with this step.
According to Mr Oleksiy Hraniy, there is a need for target amendments to the Constitution, and not the radical review of its provisions.  Having analysed the recent sociological study of public opinion, the speaker defined the main problems of the constitutional amendments, like their unclearness, the haste with which they have been passed to meet the political circumstances of the day. This evidences lack of convergence pf visions of the model of the system of public authorities between the governing elite and the people.

Mr Oleksandr Starynets, Chief of Staff of the Socialist Party stressed that there is no point in discussing the revision of the Constitution, since the constitutional reform resulted from the agreement between practically all political forces; therefore, analysing the prospects of further transformations, one should talk about the bill currently considered by the Verkhovna Rada, and  not look into some hypothetical scenarios.

Round Table: “New Format of Relations in the Parliament-President-Government Triangle”

The following key issues have been discussed:

• New Model of Relations within this Triangle: its Strong and Weak Aspects;
• Ways to Further Reform of the Public Authorities;
• Reform of the Executive Branch: from Constitutional Amendments to the Administrative Reform.

Round Table: “Constitutional Reform and Local Self-Governance”

The participants of the round table discussed the following issues:

• Bill No. 0900 (3207-1): Assessment of its Relevance to the Current Challenges;
• Ways to Improve the Administrative and Territorial System;
• Role of Local Executive Authorities under the Conditions of the Local Self-governance Reform.

Address

On the results of the Public Forum “Constitutional Reform: View of the Civil Society”, its participants issued the Address to the President, the Verkhovna Rada, the Cabinet of Ministers, Political Parties, and NGOs.

In their address, the participants have presented their generalised vision of the consequences of the constitutional reform in Ukraine and further steps towards the reformation of the system of public authorities and local self-governance. The Forum participants emphasised that implementation of the Ukrainian Constitution is complicated not only by the struggle between the President, the Parliament, and the Government, but also by the fact that the potential of the current Constitution in relation to the reform of public authorities still remains unused. The Forum participants consider that further steps towards to the reform of public authorities shall envisage not only constitutional amendments, but also adoption of a number of legislative act for the development of the constitutional provisions.

You can find also:

AGENDA of the Public Forum “CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM: VIEW OF THE CIVIL SOCIETY”
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS of the PUBLIC FORUM “CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM: VIEW OF THE CIVIL SOCIETY”
ANALYTICS, made by the experts of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives for the Public Forum “CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM: VIEW OF THE CIVIL SOCIETY”
ADDRESS of the Public Forum participants to the President of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Political Parties and Non-Governmental Organisations

Regional partners:

Centre for Legislative Initiatives (Donetsk)
Centre for Political Analysis and Election Consulting (Lutsk)
Centre for Regional Policy Studies (Sumy)
Association for Support and Development of Local Self-Governance (Luhansk)
Southern-Ukrainian Agency for Social Technologies (Zaporizhzhya)

On 8-10 December 2006, Donetsk hosted a public forum to discuss the efficiency of political parties in Ukraine, their problems and prospects”. The discussion was initiated and organised by the Agency for Legislative Initiates (Kyiv), the Centre for Legislative Initiatives (Donetsk), the Council of Europe, and a number of expert institutions of Lutsk, Sumy, Zaporizhzhya, Luhansk, and Kherson. The Forum was also supported by the joint European Commission and Council of Europe initiative for democratic development.

The forum primarily aimed to outline the problems of the party system in Ukraine, as well as to consider the ways to improve the efficiency of participation of political parties in the political processes in the context of democratic transformations. In particular, the following issues were discussed:

• Ideological basis of political parties in Ukraine;
• Institutional and staff capacity;
• Efficiency of public oversight of political parties;
• Ways to ensure and improve the efficiency of the legislation on political parties;
• Funding of political activities;
• Transparency of party finance and political corruption;
• Constitutional reform and political responsibility;
• Ways to ensure responsibility of political parties to the voters; and
• Results and prospects of the proportional representation election system with closed lists.

The forum collected about 100 participants from 19 regions of Ukraine:

1) Members of the Verkhovna Rada (V. Skubenko, V. Stretovych, V. Ivanov);

2) Members of local councils and other local self-governance representatives (О. Beznis, А.Demura, D.Bezuhlyi, Yu. Bova, V. Bohdanov, А. Bodrov, М. Hrekov, О. Vitryanyi, S.Zelinskyi, А. Ivanov, О.Kryshko, О. Krukivskyi, М. Levchenko, Yu. Mindyuk, D.Tkachenko and others);

3) Political parties local representatives (V. Bukhtiarova, О. Dzekanyuk, А. Klymenko, V.Levytskyi and others);

4) NGO and think tank experts (І. Kohut, Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiates; R.Kovalenko, Director of the Centre for Legislative Initiatives; R. Kobets, Analytical Director of the Ideal Country Project; О. Lytvynenko, Leading Policy and Law Expert of Razumkov Centre; О.Miroshnyk, Director of Local Democracy Foundation (Kharkiv); Е.Rakhimkulov, Co-Director of the Parliamentary Development Project of Ukraine and others);

5) Scholars (М. Prymush, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Head of Political Sciences Chair of Donetsk National University; О. Shcherbanyuk, Assistant Professor of the Constitutional, Administrative, and Financial Law Chair of the School of Law of Chernivtsi National University and others);

6) Media (S. Maksymova, Editor-in-Chief of the Legal Journal; О. Kharchenko, UNIAN Editor-in-Chief and others).

Also, the forum was attended by representatives of the CoE Directorate General for Political Affairs and other international institutions (J. Gützkow, Director of the NGO and Civil Society Office of the CoE DGPA; P.Nikolov, CoE DGPA Political Advisor; О. Papernyi, NGO and Democratic Governance Expert, OSCE Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Office (Warsaw); and Ye. Radchenko, OSCE Project Coordinator Office in Ukraine).

Forum Programme:

• Plenary Session: „Modern Political Parties in Ukraine and Problems of Their Participation in Political Processes in the Context of Democratic Transformations”;
• Round Table: “Quality of Political Parties and Party Finance”;
• Round Table: “Parties, Election System and Political Responsibility”; and
• Announcement of the Address to Political Parties and Non-Governmental Organisations and its discussion.

Plenary Session

In his welcoming address to the forum participants, Ihor KOHUT, Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiates wished them a constructive dialogue in the framework of a broad public and political discussion on the place and role of political parties in the modern political system of Ukraine, as well as proposed to assess the efficiency and prospects of the domestic party building in the context of democratic transformations. Uta GUTSKOV, Director of the NGO and Civil Society Office of the CoE DGPA outlined the priorities of the CoE-Ukraine cooperation in the context of support to the party building and informed on the measures planned to be implemented in Ukraine with the support of the Council of Europe.  Roman KOVALENKO, Director of the Centre for Legislative Initiatives defined a number of special interest problems concerning the assessment of the efficiency of political parties in Ukraine, in particular the inefficiency of the proportional representation election system, excessive politicisation of local councils, failure of political parties to meet their election promises, low legislative activity and improper quality of bills submitted for the parliamentary consideration.

At the discussion part of the plenary session, Denys KOVRYZHENKO, the Agency expert systemically presented the problems related to the development of the Ukrainian party system, mentioned the factors that cause them, and proposed certain steps to strengthen the role of political parties in Ukraine. MP Volodymyr STRETOVYCH raised the problem of the staffing of political parties and stressed the necessity to cover the gap and settle the conflict between political parties and the society. MP Volodymyr SKUBENKO put forward his own vision of the role of political parties in the modern world focusing especially on the responsibility of political parties to the people as the basis for the development of a balanced system of power in Ukraine. MP Volodymyr IVANOV spoke about the problem of party discipline and underlined the importance of the capacity to work in the opposition.

Round Table: “Quality of Political Parties and Party Finance

The main issues concerned the weakness or lack of the ideological basis of the modern political parties in Ukraine, inefficiency of political parties in the period between elections, the necessity to optimise the financial basis of political parties to improve their quality. Also the participants discussed the problems of the gap between the elected representatives on the one hand and political parties and voters on the other after elections, lack of the mechanism of the mandatory reporting of party members on their activity, switch of the decision-making centre from party bodies to factions, weakness of the party staff reserve, lack of transparency of the incomes and expenses of the party budgets. The issue of the political parties’ sources of funding divided the audience; one part insisted on the necessity to extend their list, while the other advocated its contraction. The discussion was moderated by Roman KOBETS, Analytical Director of the Ideal Country Project.

Round Table: “Parties, Election System and Political Responsibility”

The participants focused on the discussion of such issues, as efficiency of the election system, constitutional reform and the ways to ensure the responsibility of political parties, operation of political parties in the period between elections, decision-making mechanisms and internal party discipline. The main subject of the discussion was the efficiency of the proportional representation party system with closed lists for local councils. The majority of the audience agreed that this system has proved efficient at the national level as promoting the political structuring of the society. However, it needs to be modified for the application at the local level through introduction of open election lists. The discussion was moderated by Yevhen RADCHENKO, OSCE Project Coordinator Office in Ukraine.

Address

On the results of the forum, its participants adopted the Address to Political Parties and Non-Governmental Organisations where they expressed their hope that political parties would become true agents of national, regional, and local politics by turning into a sole “path to power” and opening the way to further deconcentration and ideological structuring of the Ukrainian society. The main emphasis was made on the necessity to overcome the deficiencies of closed lists and one-stage nomination of candidates which decreases the role of local party organisations. The Address also contains a call to make decisive transformation of political parties by means of:

• Reconsideration of the efficiency of closed lists for the elections to councils of all levels;
• Stimulation of the internal party democracy;
• Clearly-defined ideological position and formation of programme positions on the basis of internal party discussions;
• Establishment of cooperation between party representatives in authorities and party organisations;
• Establishment of mechanisms of political education of political party members and supporters, as well as dissemination of information on the successful experience of organisation of work;
• The necessity of periodical reporting of party representatives in authorities on their activities;
• Drastic reorganisation of work of central party bodies that coordinate the operation of factions in local councils;
• Public refusal from the morally doubtful sources of funding.

A special emphasis was made on the necessity to apply European standards of political party activities in terms of their efficiency assessment criteria, amendment of legislation on political parties, dissemination of conclusions made at the forum among the members of the Verkhovna Rada and local self-governance representatives.

The forum was broadly covered in the media. Altogether, about 40 media representatives participated in the forum. The issued raised at the discussion will find their continuation and development at the next public forum that will be dedicated to the constitutional reform issues and is expected to take place on 15-17 February 2007.

You can find also:

• Agenda of the PUBLIC FORUM “EFFICIENCY OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN UKRAINE: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS”.
• List of participants of the PUBLIC FORUM “EFFICIENCY OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN UKRAINE: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS”.
• Analytics, made by the experts of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives for the PUBLIC FORUM “EFFICIENCY OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN UKRAINE: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS”.
• The Address to Political Parties and Non-Governmental Organisations on the PUBLIC FORUM “EFFICIENCY OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN UKRAINE: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS”.