Monitoring Report of the Activity of the 11th Session of the 9th Verkhovna Rada

Overcoming the crisis of limited decision-making capacity

A total of 137 laws were adopted during the 11th session. This is a relatively strong figure compared to the 10th session, which set a record low for the number of laws passed. Thus, during the 10th session, only the most recent, often minor, technical draft laws were adopted, which raised no significant objections or discussions. By contrast, during the 11th session, both the number of laws passed and the period for their registration increased, and it became possible to pass draft laws that had undergone more extensive processing and included more substantial changes. Both the higher number of laws passed and their registration period show that the consensus-building challenges seen during the 10th session were effectively addressed in the 11th session.

The President’s return to regular law-making

During martial law, the President, as a legislative initiator, authored primarily ratifications, own decrees, and few symbolic draft laws. And their number was relatively low. In contrast, during the 11th session, the President doubled the number of registered draft laws compared to the 9th and 10th sessions.

For the first time during martial law, the President of Ukraine authored more than 15% of the laws passed, marking a one-and-a-half-fold increase over the previous two sessions. Notably, these included not only decrees and ratifications, as had been the case in almost all prior sessions during martial law. During the 11th session, there were also 3 standard laws. All of these, moreover, were marked by the President as urgent.

Strengthening legislative activity on European integration

Several indicators demonstrated the strengthening of the Verkhovna Rada’s legislative activity aimed at approximating Ukrainian legislation to EU legislation.

1. Thus, during the 11th session, 16 European integration laws were adopted (11.7% of all laws adopted).
2. In terms of the reforms ratified by the Verkhovna Rada, the largest number of agreements were ratified with the EU (4 agreements).
3. In terms of committee work, the work of the Committee on Ukraine’s Integration into the EU is illustrative. It was this committee that demonstrated the largest increase in performance among the other committees. The growth occurred both in terms of the number of opinions provided (+11 opinions) and the number of draft laws (+14 draft laws), which was reflected in an increase in the workload per MP (+1.38 opinions provided per MP) and an increase in the workload per secretariat employee (+1.02 opinions provided per secretariat employee).

Poor legislative performance of the mono-majority

During the 11th session, the “Servant of the People” faction showed a record low share of registered and adopted laws.

This is the fourth session in which the “Servant of the People” faction’s performance in terms of registered draft laws has been declining. However, during the 11th session, the “Servant of the People” faction set a record by demonstrating the lowest rate (39% of all registered draft laws) in the entire ninth convocation.

The record low share of registered draft laws correlates with the record low share (42%) of adopted laws initiated by members of the “Servant of the People” faction.

The contradictory dynamics of legislative spam

Overall, indicators show a decrease in legislative spam during the 11th session. Thus, the growth of legislative spam observed during the 10th session was interrupted. However, the activities of one parliamentary group have many signs of legislative spam, which makes the overall observation of a decrease in legislative spam somewhat controversial.

The decrease in legislative spam is evidenced by:

1. The total number of registered draft laws for the session is lower – 565 draft laws. This is 118 draft laws less than in the previous spring [ninth] session.
2. The proportion of draft laws with a single signatory decreased, while the share of draft laws with 8-22 signatories increased.
3. Halving the share of adopted laws with a single signatory and increasing the share of adopted laws with 8-22 and 23+ signatories.

At the same time, the performance of the “Restoration of Ukraine” group stands out from the general trend of reduced legislative spam. Despite their small number, the MPs of this group registered 107 draft laws (19% of all registered draft laws), which outpaced most factions and groups, and even the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. With 5.94 draft laws per MP, the “Restoration of Ukraine” group set a record for the entire ninth convocation in terms of the number of initiated draft laws per MP. This figure is twice as high as any other figure for any other faction or group in previous sessions (or four times as high as the figures for other factions and groups in the 11th session). This marks the third consecutive session in which MPs from this group have demonstrated such high rates (more than 5 draft laws per MP). Against the backdrop of high rates of registration of draft laws, it is noteworthy that during the 11th session, not a single law initiated by MPs of this group was adopted. This pattern is a strong indicator of legislative spam – registration of a large number of low-quality draft laws with little chance of adoption.

Increase in the volume of violations

The situation with violations of the constitutional procedure for signing draft laws is becoming increasingly threatening. During the 11th session, the deadline for signing (or submitting proposals) was violated in respect of 54 laws, i.e. in 39% of cases. In addition, seven other laws were neither signed by the President, vetoed, nor received proposals (despite the singing deadline having passed). One more draft law was not even signed by the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. Combined, these violations affect 45% of all laws passed during the 11th session. That is, almost every second law passed. This is a worrying statistic that has worsened with each session held under martial law.

It is worth noting that during the first six months of martial law, 16.4% of laws had violations of the constitutional procedure. The following, 8th session, showed a 22.4% rate of laws for which the President violated the constitutional deadline. During the 9th session, this figure reached 36%. During the 10th session – 42%. If this trend continues, it is likely that by the 12th session, we can expect the President to violate the constitutional procedure for half of the laws adopted by the Verkhovna Rada. It is difficult to justify such a volume of violations by martial law, as there were three times as many violations during the 11th session as during the first six months of martial law, when Russian troops were stationed near Kyiv. Nor can they be explained by regulatory and procedural shortcomings, as the relevant rules have not been changed.

The volume of violations of the VRU Rules of Procedure is also significant: procedural rules were breached for up to 53% (slightly more than half) of laws considered during the 11th session. This represents a threefold increase in violations compared to the period before February 24, 2022.

The Agency for Legislative Initiatives has prepared a comprehensive Monitoring of the 11th session of the Verkhovna Rada of the IX convocation. Read more about the activities of the Verkhovna Rada in the context of the 11th session in the new Monitoring.

This monitoring has been prepared with the support of Sweden. The contents of the document are the sole responsibility of the CSO “Agency for Legislative Initiatives” and do not necessarily reflect the position of Sweden.