The agenda of the Parliament is a list of draft laws that MPs are to consider in the session hall. Essentially, this is the Verkhovna Rada’s work plan.

Agendas and their implementation bring clarity to the Parliament’s work. This is the foundation of the quality performance of MPs, as they enable parliamentarians to prepare for the session and review draft laws to be put to vote.

Moreover, the availability of agendas is essential for the public and our partners, who may use them to keep track of the matters the Parliament has to vote for and when.

So, if the Parliament follows the agenda, this indicates the systematic and predictable functioning of the Verkhovna Rada, which is the most important democratic institution in Ukraine.

However, in the Ukrainian reality, agendas have long stopped being a perfect plan for the Parliament’s operation.

First, agendas are unreal in terms of the number of draft laws.

Sometimes, over 100 draft laws are included in the agenda for one session. It is physically unfeasible to consider such a significant number of draft laws and resolutions during a single day, given the need to discuss them.

To substantiate this assertion, we analysed four springs of legislative activity and deduced the capacity of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, i.e., the maximum number of draft laws that the Parliament can consider in a single session.

Before martial law, the Verkhovna Rada performed quite consistently. In 2020 and 2021, the average statistical number of draft laws considered during one session was 6.7 (the difference between the analysed period of 2020 and 2021 being in two decimal points).

Although the speed of the Verkhovna Rada’s work hardly changed in practice, session agendas were very inflated. The plan significantly exceeded the MPs’ ability to analyse such many draft laws and the Rada’s capacity to consider them. For instance, in spring 2020, one agenda on average contained 10 draft laws, while in 2021, the number already reached 45.

After the introduction of martial law, the capacity of the VRU increased. We have observed that the average number of draft laws considered per session has increased by nearly threefold, whereas agendas have simultaneously shortened significantly.

The spring of 2022 saw an average of 84% of draft laws from the set plans being considered, which means much better adherence to agendas. It was during this period that they were most effective.

In the spring of 2023, the Rada preserved the speed of consideration, which was evidenced at the start of the full-scale invasion. For instance, the average number of considered draft laws per session is similar. At the same time, agendas are increasingly going beyond the Verkhovna Rada’s capacity in terms of consideration. In particular, the agenda for 30 May 2023 contained nearly 70 draft laws. It is unreal to consider so many draft laws during just one session.

Second, the consideration of draft laws may take place outside the plan or without any plan whatsoever.

Before martial law, MPs received the agenda a week in advance, so according to the logic, they had enough time to analyse at least part of these draft laws. Moreover, according to the Regulations, MPs were provided with the plenary session agenda by 6 p.m. on the day. However, it could differ from the previous weekly plans in that draft laws could be entered in a different sequence, or new draft laws could appear that were not initially included in any of the agendas.

After the full-scale invasion started, the already imperfect planning became even more chaotic. In spring 2022, agendas were handed over to parliamentarians just a few hours before the session. This was primarily associated with the Parliament’s security policy. When Russian tanks and artillery are situated within a few kilometres of the administrative border of Kyiv, it is imperative that the Parliament, including MPs, functions without prior announcement.

In spring 2023, the situation somewhat stabilised, and MPs started receiving the agenda one week before the start of sessions. But just as before, the previously devised agendas are not always followed – new draft laws may be put for consideration during the session, although there were no plans to consider them.

It appears that the ideal agenda should be elaborated based on the Council’s past results.

Herein lie two distinct alternatives: prior to the full-scale invasion, in the spring of 2020 and 2021, the median number of considered draft laws per session, comprising half of the indicators being lower and half being higher, was 4 and 5, respectively.

After the full-scale invasion, the situation changed drastically: 20 considered draft laws per session in the spring of 2022 and 22 draft laws in the spring of 2023.

*We cite median data in the article to present a general picture, which, however, does not convey the multifaceted nature of the legislative process.

After a year and a half of a full-scale invasion, Ukrainians have adapted to living under a constant threat. State institutions, the parliament, in particular, were also stabilized. This is evidenced by quantitative data from the last monitoring of Verkhovna Rada by the Agency for the Legislative Initiative (ALI). 

We shall begin with some general numbers. During the 8th session (from September 2022 to February 2023), 385 draft laws were registered, 207 draft laws were considered, and 138 were approved/ratified. 29 hours of plenary time were spent in the assembly hall to consider draft laws. The Committees provided 405 conclusions on draft laws. Now let’s dive into the conclusions hiding behind these general figures. 

In particular, we see three main tendencies: strengthening the government’s positions, reducing legislative spam and stabilising the work of parliament in wartime.

What signals about the strengthening of the Government’s positions is the fact that the Cabinet of Ministers started actively using the right of legislative initiative — 30% of all laws approved during 8th session were initiated by the government. This is the record for their entire 9th convocation of the parliament.

Unlike MPs and President, the Government began to move their draft laws faster in the second reading. The part of registered acts has also risen — from 10.1 to 14.5%.

A quick reminder that there are only three actors in a lawmaking in Ukraine — Members of Parliament, Government, and the President. Usually, in Ukraine, the MPs play a crucial role in lawmaking — they register the most bills, particularly the ones that will later become laws. International and Ukrainian experts think this situation is distressing and recommend switching to Government-centric model. These recommendations are based on the fact that the Government has better expertise and understanding of the mechanics of implementation and financing of a particular law. The government-centric model is also actively discussed within the framework of the parliamentary reform. The tendency to strengthen government positions in the legislative process during the 8th session of the Verkhovna Rada resonates with the idea of ​​forming a government-centric decision-making model.

During the 8th session, 385 draft laws were registered. If we compare it to the similar 6th session, the number of registered draft laws per session has decreased by almost 200. A reminder that at the end of the 8th session, there were 409 MPs. For the first time during 9th convocation of Verkhovna Rada, the number of registered drafts per session is fewer than the number of Verkhovna Rada MPs.

For the time being, in general, one MP initiates 0,94 bill. Until the 8th session, MPs, in their law-making behaviour, mostly followed the principle «the more draft laws, the better the MP». Some even focused on the ratings of deputies-legislators. However, writing, proceeding and approving one worthy law is better than 10 «bad ones». «Bad» laws usually don’t work and need new legislative changes to make them work. Laws that have undergone the procedure of two readings are typically better than the ones hastily passed in one reading.

Of course, not all badly prepared draft laws are passed through, but all of them take up resources from Verkhovna Rada, as they should be reviewed and developed by committees and analytical units of the parliament. Meaning because of legislative spam, Parliament wastes its resources instead of improving important draft laws. Fewer registered acts allow more effective usage of Parliament’s assets.

The work of Verkhovna Rada was stabilised, normalised, and some procedures even accelerated compared to the first semester of a full-scale invasion, when the society watched a true turbo mode unleash in the Parliament. This stabilisation gave an opportunity to partially return to the initiatives that were discussed in Parliament prior to 24th February 2022. 

Verkhovna Rada remained focused on the same topics as the first semester of wartime mode. The busiest committees of this session were Finance Committee, Law Enforcement Committee and National Security Committee. This means that national security, defence, and its financing remained the priority of Parliament during the 8th session.

Two thirds of laws were adopted by the two readings procedure. Although during the first semester of wartime mode, only one third of laws got through two readings. Meaning Verkhovna Rada could adapt work in a way that important draft laws were considered and processed for a longer period of time, which usually means more sophisticated laws as an outcome. 

Two thirds (up to 63%) of laws during the 8th session were adopted, violating the legislative process. This reminds of a situation that we observed the first six months after the full-scale invasion. Violations of Regulations of the Verkhovna Rada were usually related to the speed of the adoption of laws. The high pace of passage of draft laws comes at a price — their processing is worse.

Quantitative indicators analysed by the ALI team show only the tendencies of the Parliaments pace of work. They are not to be considered as evidence for increasing or decreasing quality of adopted laws. The apparent strengthening of the government’s positions does not cancel the complete dependence of the Cabinet’s policy on the decisions of the president’s office. However, even from the described trends, it can be concluded that the work of parliamentarians has stabilised. Legislative initiatives during the 8th session were worked out more thoroughly, were less spammed, and more attention was paid to the proposals of the Cabinet of Ministers.

This article was prepared with the financial support of Sweden.

Accountability and control of political party funding may soon be restored. The draft laws on this issue were submitted by the Cabinet of Ministers and MPs on the initiative of the first deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Korniyenko.

This is already the third iteration of the introduction of state financing of parties and control over their finances. The first attempt took place back in 2008. At that time, the Agency for Legislative Initiatives was one of the organisations that promoted the idea of state financing of parties and effective control over their receipts and expenditures.

Unfortunately, 15 years ago, the majority of political forces did not accept such an idea, contenting themselves with opaque oligarchic financing. Unwillingness to be accountable and populist rhetoric slowed everything down.

But why is reporting needed at all? The general logic of state financing of parties and control over their finances is that it can:

• reduce the influence of big capital (that is, individual private donors and industrial and financial groups) on political parties and, accordingly, on the adoption of political decisions;
• make the financing of political parties transparent and strengthen control over party finances by the state;
• provide conditions for the development of new political parties, fair and transparent interparty competition.

Ukrainian parties returned to financing and control for the second time in 2015. It was part of a broader reform to fight corruption. The Ukrainian public and influential international organisations, such as the OSCE, the Venice Commission, and GRECO, supported the reform.

A special body was created – the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), which was supposed, in particular, to administer the budget financing of parliamentary parties and control the activities of all parties, collecting and checking reports on income and expenses. In case of detection of violations, administrative and, in some cases, criminal liability could be imposed. If a violation concerned the parliamentary parties, NACP had the authority to stop funding from the state budget.

The second attempt to introduce party financing and reporting proved more successful. Money from the state budget began to flow to the parties in 2016 and continues to flow to this day. However, reporting was not such a continuous process – it was mandatory from the fall of 2016 until the spring of 2020, that is, for three and a half years.

And then, the COVID-19 pandemic started. The Verkhovna Rada allowed the parties not to submit reports for the quarantine period. Because of this, it is impossible to control the parties’ activities to detect violations and questionable contributions.

This step seemed logical at one time because the coronavirus pandemic complicated the work of many bodies – both party and state. It was more difficult for them to obtain the documents necessary for reporting and organising this process.

But already in 2021, it became apparent that society had adapted to the pandemic, the work of both state and non-state bodies improved, but control over funds was not renewed.

Parliamentary parties received funds but didn’t have to report on them. They were not forbidden to do this, but they were not obliged either.

Parties could voluntarily report, but this option did not become popular. Large parties, with a few exceptions, did not submit reports. If any parties did report, they were usually small parties that had [almost] no expenses and income. Therefore, the problem of uncontrolled financing of parliamentary parties was not solved.

Talks about renewing reporting and control were cut short in February 2022. In March 2022, Verkhovna Rada relaxed the reporting requirements of legal entities: reports could be submitted or not submitted, liability for non-submission/late submission was abolished, and authorised bodies could conduct or not conduct audits of reports. There were objective reasons for this – part of the documentation was destroyed, and banks and control bodies had significant interruptions in their work.

Parties have the status of legal entities, so these rules also apply to them. This means that NACP could neither check party reports nor impose liability on the party.

Additional relaxations were created, common to all legal entities during martial law, in addition to specific relaxations established specifically for parties during quarantine.

After a year and a half of martial law, a new demand for party accountability appeared in society. So there were registered two draft laws to resolve this issue.

Its main focus is on detailing the party financing mechanism and possible party expenses, but in general, the draft law is quite versatile and provides for:

1. Limitation of contributions to party support through related legal entities and non-profit organisations, in particular, to limit indirect influence;
2. Limitation of the total amount of the contribution at the level of 20% of its total aggregate income for the last five years (to avoid financing by fictitious persons);
3. Separately, it is allowed to finance the involvement of persons with disabilities in parties;
4. The priority areas of party financing have been determined;
5. Prohibited types of expenses financed from the state budget have been established;
6. The system of distribution of state budget funds between parties is changing;
7. COVID-19 relaxations for party reporting are going to be cancelled.

This draft law is more comprehensive in terms of restoring reporting. It provides:

1. Reduction of the percentage barrier that a party must overcome in elections to receive funding from 5 to 3%, which should facilitate the development of smaller parties.
2. Martial law reporting exemptions that apply to all legal entities will no longer apply to parties.
3. If the party has state funding, its reports for previous periods (from 2020) must be submitted by 90 days after the date of entry into force of this law.
4. If the party does NOT have state funding, its reports for previous periods must be submitted by 120 days after the date of entry into force of this law.
5. Reports for these earlier periods may be in an annual format, and quarterly reports should resume in the future.
6. The NACP must verify these reports and reports voluntarily submitted during martial law within 60 days from the date of submission or the date of entry into force of the law.
7. Parties are released from responsibility if they cannot provide information due to force majeure circumstances related to hostilities (destruction, damage or unavailability due to occupation – documents or computers). Force majeure must be documented.
8. The register of party reporting resumes.

If we compare these two draft laws, the task of restoring reporting and control is better performed by draft law No. 9419-1.

Draft law No. 9419 in its current version will not lead to the resumption of reporting because martial law is currently in effect. Therefore parties will be subject to general relaxations for reporting that apply to all legal entities.

Draft law No. 9419 cancels only the COVID-19 relaxations. In addition, it does not define any transitional norms and rules for submitting reports for previous periods, nor does it consider the limitations of martial law.

Transitional provisions and cancellation of COVID-19 and martial law relaxations are in draft law No. 9419-1.

Although draft law No. 9419 does not restore party reporting, it can improve the general mechanism of state financing. Still, its current version contains part of unfinished norms that do not have real implementation mechanisms or appear to be unnecessary.

In general, draft laws No. 9419 and No. 9419-1 do not contradict each other too much. Therefore, it will be interesting to observe their consideration process because they are alternatives. Both draft laws have quite promising initiators – the Cabinet of Ministers for No. 9419 and the First Deputy Chairman of the VRU with the support of several factions and groups for No. 9419-1.

So, there is a reasonable prospect of restoring the accountability of political parties, especially those that receive state funding. Control over how they spend these funds can finally be restored.

At the same time, it is essential to avoid making mistakes made in the previous period. Most recently, on June 6, 2023, the Accounts Chamber’s report on the audit of state financing of parties in 2016-2019 was released, which covers three out of three and a half years of total control and reporting on party finances. The conclusion of this report is quite sad:

“The National Agency on Corruption Prevention has not ensured effective management, productive, economical, effective and legal use of state budget funds allocated for leadership and management in the field of corruption prevention and financing political parties’ statutory activities”.

Party financing lacks performance indicators, making it difficult for the Audit Chamber to evaluate relevant budget programs. Therefore, assessing the effectiveness of using UAH 1.5 billion to finance parties was impossible. Control over how money was spent on party financing by the NACP was complicated due to shortcomings in the legislation, which the NACP still needs to correct.

Unfortunately, neither draft law No. 9419 nor No. 9419-1 take into account parts of the recommendations of the Accounting Chamber. For example, the recommendation regarding “determining the reporting of local organisations of political parties on the spending of state funding and the crediting of state funding to separate accounts of local organisations to improve control over the targeted use of these funds” was not considered.

The Verkhovna Rada continues functioning in conditions of martial law, which presents many challenges both for the state management system in general and for the Parliament in particular. However, this session has seen the stabilisation of legislative processes.

This means that the Verkhovna Rada is still dealing with the agenda that emerged after 24 February 2022, but its functioning is no longer so extraordinary and hasty. Work processes have been modified to such an extent that it has become feasible to partially revisit the issues that were on the agenda prior to the full-scale invasion.

Overall, the Monitoring of the work of the 8th session of the 9th convocation of the Verkhovna Rada showed three key trends: strengthening the positions of the Cabinet of Ministers, reducing legislative spam, and stabilising work under the martial law regime.

During the 8th session, 385 draft laws were registered, and 207 were considered in the session hall. 138 draft laws became laws.

At the same time, a telling peculiarity is when, for the first time in a long time, at least during the entire 9th convocation, the number of draft laws registered with the Verkhovna Rada per session is lower than the number of Verkhovna Rada MPs. On average, one MP initiates of 0.94 draft laws, which also reflects the tendency to reduce legislative spam.

It is also noteworthy that the Cabinet of Ministers has improved its interaction with the Verkhovna Rada and has begun to promote its draft laws more efficiently. This indicates that the government is improving its position as a subject of legislative initiative, although it has previously lagged behind the MPs and the President. Hence, the Cabinet of Ministers has significantly increased the share of legislative initiatives, and as a result, 30% of all laws adopted during the 8th session were initiated by the Government. This is a record of the entire 9th convocation of the Cabinet of Ministers.

Furthermore, the situation regarding the passage of draft laws is interesting: the dynamics of the 8th session somehow continue the dynamics of the first half of the martial law period and somewhat return to the dynamics of the 6th session. Some of the draft laws pertain to the military agenda, while the other portion relates to initiatives that were developed and registered up until 24 February 2022 (for the second reading, the ratio is approximately 50/50).

The President, as the subject of a legislative initiative, returned to more familiar tasks: 20% of presidential initiatives adopted during the first reading and, in general, are made up of “ordinary” laws. During the first six months of martial law, laws were adopted as initiated by the President, which were purely symbolic laws and ratifications. Regarding legislative proposals of the MPs, it is noteworthy that for the first time in the last four sessions, their draft laws experienced the slowest passage between adoption in the first reading, the second reading, and overall. Nonetheless, the average processing time for both parliamentary and government draft laws was significantly shorter than that of the 6th session despite the similar duration.

The process of draft law review by committees and expert analytical units, as well as the political approval of draft laws, roughly corresponds to the first six months of martial law. The time required for preparing draft laws for the second reading increased slightly, and for 40% of draft laws, this indicator grew by 17–19 days.

During the 8th session, 42 conclusions of the main committees were prepared on the dismissal of draft laws. Conclusions regarding deviations can serve as indicators of both the political loyalty of the committees and the level of quality of the preparation of draft laws.

In traditional monitoring, the aspects related to violations of the Regulation are analysed separately. During the first reading, the share of violations decreased, but during the second reading, it barely changed compared to the previous session. This phenomenon can be attributed to the distribution of draft laws according to the readings: during the initial six months of martial law, most draft laws were adopted in the first reading and as a whole, whereas now, the majority of draft laws are adopted in the second reading.

This session may be characterised as a “stabilisation” one for the activities of the Verkhovna Rada in martial law conditions. With a well-established and stable performance, the Parliament is capable of allocating sufficient time to the consideration of draft laws, resulting in their adoption during the second reading rather than the first reading. Thus, the Verkhovna Rada was able to adapt its operation so that important draft laws were considered and worked out for a longer time. This usually means a higher quality of laws. Nevertheless, violations in legislative procedures are still at a high level.

Read more about the work of the Parliament during the second six months of the full-scale invasion in the monitoring of our analysts.

These days, the Agency for Legislative Initiatives has been participating in meetings with Pat Cox, former President of the European Parliament and Head of the Mission to promote the reform of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Discussions were devoted to further steps to continue parliamentary reform during the full-scale war.

The reform of the Ukrainian Parliament began in 2015 with the launch of the Assessment Mission of the European Parliament under the leadership of Pat Cox. The Mission has developed a Roadmap with specific recommendations on how to strengthen the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine institutionally and solve the existing problems of Ukrainian parliamentarism – the lack of political dialogue, constant “legislative spam” from MPs and replacing the quality of legislative initiatives with quantity, the weakness of the Apparatus of the VRU and the lack of understanding the importance of this structure and parliamentary officials.

The Agency for Legislative Initiatives supports the parliamentary reform from the very beginning and monitors its implementation. As of mid-2021, we estimate that the reform of the parliament has been completed less than half. And although at the beginning of 2022 the priorities of both the Verkhovna Rada and the entire Ukrainian society have changed, we are convinced that the reform of the parliament must be continued.

During the full-scale invasion, we propose to concentrate, first of all, on the following areas of reform:

Before the start of the full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian parliament was definitely not ready for the challenges of wartime. If the parliament could not, however chaotically, continue its work in February-March 2022, the capacity of the Ukrainian authorities in the eyes of partners and enemies would be in serious danger.

Therefore, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine should have an appropriate plan to ensure business continuity management and disaster recovery planning in case of crisis situations. The Ukrainian parliament should develop of such a plan, taking into account the existing experience of the VRU after February 24, 2022, as well as the experience of parliaments of other countries with similar plans.

The fact that the VRU continued to perform its functions after the beginning of the full-scale invasion is largely due to the achievements of the VRU Apparatus, and in particular the Computerized Systems Department, which was, just one example, able to provide the remote and secured functions of various systems and subsystems very quickly. This is the result of the implementation of the previous digital strategy.

Now is the time to create a new, more up-to-date strategy that will take into account experience with the most modern technologies, including machine translation.

At the end of 2022, draft law No. 8327 was registered in the parliament, which introduces the Code of Conduct for MPs with clear principles, rules, and, most importantly, sanctions for their violation, as well as mechanisms for monitoring their compliance. The Agency for Legislative Initiatives was also involved in preparing this draft law.

The adoption of the Code of Conduct is an extremely important step both for the Verkhovna Rada as a sign of the independence and legitimacy of the institution, and for our partners and allies, because it is a direct recommendation of the Roadmap of Parliamentary Reform, OSCE/ODIHR, GRECO and the Council of Europe.

With the beginning of the full-scale invasion, every member of parliament had turned into an ambassador of the Ukrainian people. At the same time, there are several issues that require an adequate solution now, so that the general public diplomacy of Ukraine would become more coherent.

The low level of expert-analytical support and, as a result, not very well written legislative initiatives, which then turn into conflicts in legislation or simply non-working laws, is a long-standing problem of the Ukrainian parliament.

Currently, MPs lack the practice of assessing the legislative impact of draft laws before their adoption, as well as understanding why this analysis is needed.

At the same time, improving the quality of laws produced by the parliament is a priority task now, both so that wartime legislative initiatives do not undermine the legitimacy of the Verkhovna Rada, and in order to create a quality framework for future legislative initiatives related to the restoration of post-war Ukraine.

We are grateful to the current convocation of the Verkhovna Rada for their willingness to continue parliamentary reform even during a full-scale war, and to Pat Cox and international partners, including National Democratic Institute in Ukraine, for supporting important changes and dialogue with civil society.

The Agency for Legislative Initiatives will always support the Ukrainian Parliament on this path.

The Agency has always contributed to the Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine and makes a lot of efforts to develop parliamentary diplomacy. This week, together with the Embassy of Ukraine in Canada / Посольство України в Канаді and the Parliamentary Centre, we organized a panel discussion, “Toward Ukraine’s Membership in NATO: Strengthening Euro-Atlantic Security” at the Parliament of Canada.

The event’s main goal was to discuss the future of Ukraine, its security and the security of the entire Euro-Atlantic community. Considering Ukraine’s path to NATO – how fast we are progressing, what reforms are being implemented and which are just being planned, what kind of support, in terms of legislation, we need from allies and how Ukraine’s accession to NATO will strengthen the Alliance and Euro-Atlantic security in general.

The event was attended by Canadian parliamentarians, the deputy chairman of the VRU Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, the Head of the Permanent Delegation of Ukraine to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Yehor Chernev, Deputy Minister of Defense for European Integration Andriy Shevchenko and representatives of the diplomatic corps, including Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to Canada Her Excellency Yuliya Kovaliv and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Finland to Canada His Excellency Roy Eriksson.

The event was held as part of the project “Parliament and Accountability of the Security Sector in Ukraine” (PASS Ukraine), which the Agency implements jointly with the Parliamentary Centre (Canada), in cooperation with the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and with the support of Global Affairs Canada within the framework of the Peace and Stabilization Operations Program (PSOPs).

The text was prepared for “Dzerkalo Tyzhnia” (Mirror of the Week newspaper)

The end of 2022 was remembered, among other things, for adopting the scandalous draft law No. 5655, which its critics were easy to call “urban rape reform”. Mass media wrote that it expanded developers’ capabilities, removing almost all responsibility from them while opening up new opportunities for corruption. The prospect of adoption made the public flare up: criticism was heard seemingly from everywhere: the Ministry of Culture, the Association of Ukrainian Cities, the National Union of Architects and many other public organizations, and even the NAPC came out categorically against the weakening of transparency in the field of construction.

Law draft No. 5655 gathered only 228 votes in its favour, with just three MPs providing the majority. A day before the vote, registered was a petition demanding to veto the draft law, which accumulated the required number of signatures in a few days. But time elapsed, and neither the veto nor the signature appeared on the document. All deadlines have passed, and No. 5655 still hangs in “legislative purgatory” as if the scandalous draft law had never existed. Yet thanks to that, another problem popped out, and it had been eroding the Ukrainian constitutional norms for years. What is happening, and how can it be addressed? We suggest you figure that out.

Article 94 of the Constitution of Ukraine defines —“The President of Ukraine, within fifteen days after receiving the law, shall sign it, taking for pursuance, and officially promulgate it or shall return the law with his/her motivated and formulated proposals to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for reconsideration”.

And what if the President won’t do this? The same article states — “If the President of Ukraine does not return the law for reconsideration within the prescribed period, the law is considered to have been approved by the President of Ukraine and must be signed and officially promulgated”. In theory, we have a fairly complete picture of the adoption of draft laws. Regretfully, only in theory.

In practice, everything is a little more complicated. The thing is that the said norm does not provide a clear understanding of who must sign such a draft law if the “15 days of the President” have expired. On the one hand, this can be construed as meaning that the President him/herself must sign and promulgate the law (albeit in violation of the 15-day deadline). On the other hand, the very next paragraph prescribes a rule if the President vetoes the approved draft law and the Parliament overrides the veto with a constitutional majority of 300 votes or more: “If the President of Ukraine has not signed such a law, it shall be officially promulgated by the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine immediately and shall be published with his/her signature”. Article 94 is contained in the very section of the Constitution dealing with the Verkhovna Rada.

All this gives reasons to believe that the draft law, which has not been signed by the president, must be signed by the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada. One way or another, in the second case — when the veto is overcome (paragraph 4 of Article 94) —the directly approved entity is in place to take the last step for publishing the document. Whereas in the first case — when the draft law simply lies unsigned (paragraph 3 of Article 94) — there is no clear understanding of who exactly must sign the draft law that the President has not signed. This is what creates the most problems.

As history shows, it’s very simple: firstly, some Presidents allowed themselves to disregard the 15-day limit, and the fact of violation of the deadline has become a common phenomenon since Kuchma’s era. Subsequently, his successors used this increasingly more often: as of 26 June 2018, three dozen draft laws had been pending then-President Petro Poroshenko’s signature for more than a month. Gradually, lateness turned into nearly a habit — in the first two years of his term, Poroshenko, on average, vetoed the draft laws on the 19th day, thus violating the provisions of the Constitution.

Another very interesting thing happened during Petro Poroshenko’s tenure, the likes of which had not been recorded since the adoption of the Constitution — for the first time ever, a draft law was not signed as a matter of principle (the tenures for both the eighth convocation of the Verkhovna Rada and the fifth President have already expired). The draft law is still on the shelf at the Presidential Office. This refers to the infamous draft law No. 5553, which became a precedent for the abuse of the imprecision in the Constitution. It was aimed at reassuring the depositors of the newly nationalized Privatbank. At the same time, this document contradicted obligations to the IMF, possibly because the President did not turn to the draft law.

But the most crucial thing in this story is something else: never before had Article 94 been tested for strength so directly. It looks like this can be used in the future. This is exactly what is happening now: as of 10 April 2023, 25 unsigned draft laws sit and collect dust at the Presidential Office, with some of them waiting for their fate to be decided for years. For example, the draft Law On Amendments to the Budget Code of Ukraine No. 2661 of 20 December 2019 was submitted to the President for signature on 21 January 2020, i.e., more than three years have passed.

Specific trends in “very nearly laws” appear to be rather vague. However, even the existing picture, drawn with broad strokes, seems fanciful. Of the total number of “forgotten” documents, two were submitted as drafts by President Zelenskyi himself and three more — by Prime Minister Shmyhal. The case becomes even stranger considering that the initiators of another 18 draft laws included members of the pro-presidential parliamentary faction, Servant of the People. That is, out of the 25 ignored draft laws, 23 — the absolute majority, 92% (!) — were submitted by members of the ruling coalition or by “Zelenskyi’s people” (including himself, no matter how ironic this sounds).

Other data reveal a greater depth of the overall picture: 13 out of the 25 analysed draft laws were adopted by more than 300 votes — that is, the complete consolidation of the Parliament can be mentioned in their case. And when the President does not sign such draft laws, what we have is a “silent veto”, as it is called, which can’t be overcome. 52% of the draft laws already have a constitutional majority, so the subsequent evolution of the case can be imagined as follows: the President vetoes, and the Verkhovna Rada would have to overrule (of course, if he were to have the political will and once again collect 300 votes for such initiatives). Instead, the “silent veto” — ignoring a draft law submitted for signature — cannot be overcome at the moment.

So, three trends are distinguished here:

The head of state, time and time again, takes advantage of the shortcomings of the Constitution to reject even those draft laws that were adopted by the constitutional majority (as of 10 April — 52% of such cases).

Most of the unsigned law drafts come from the pro-presidential faction, which indicates weak communication between the President and his party and calls into question the very existence of the single-party majority.

The reasons behind the decisions not to sign are unclear: government officials initiate most draft laws, and only the President himself can say why he did not sign them.

A non-solid attitude towards statutory prescriptions that regulate the course of law-making is characteristic of the work not only of the President but also of the Parliament. In the Verkhovna Rada, violations during the adoption of draft laws have already become a common practice. Increasingly, legislators perceive the Rules of Procedures not as a set of rules but as a list of completely optional recommendations. After the full-scale invasion, two out of three laws passed have some sort of procedural flaw, and in 2021, Ruslan Stefanchuk noted that “in this Verkhovna Rada… not a single law of Ukraine was adopted in full accordance with the Rules of Procedures of the Verkhovna Rada”. In light of this, the library of unsigned draft laws at the Presidential Office no longer seems to be something incredible.

What is the President’s motivation for ignoring certain bills? Several hypotheses can be put forward:

1. Some part of the draft laws, especially those adopted by the Verkhovna Rada at the beginning of martial law, has simply lost their relevance. An example is draft law No. 7153. Like some other law drafts, it was voted on at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, when circumstances constantly changed. After the liberation of a large part of the north of Ukraine, many problems that the draft law was supposed to solve have lost their relevance. Therefore, the draft law’s obsolescence may be one reason for not signing it.
2. The case of draft law No. 5655 On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Reforming the Field of Urban Development is illustrative. It received a lot of criticism, including from the Union of Architects and civil society. Even more: the European Parliament directly stated that adopting this draft law is an obstacle to the EU. Yet it was supported by the majority of votes in the Verkhovna Rada, so the President should have signed or vetoed the law. Still, vociferous fallout seems to have done its job, so the guarantor of the Ukrainian Constitution is not ready to sign it. Then why not use the right to veto? Here comes the time for speculation: conflict of interest? Reluctance to push back lobbyists? In each case, vetoing or signing is a loud message to the concerned groups. It is less provocative to leave the document until better times.

What are the ways to change the current situation? Solving this problem is a complex issue. The thing is that the said imprecision in the Constitution becomes obvious to the public only after the news about another unsigned draft law. This happened both with draft law No. 2689 On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine regarding the Implementation of International Criminal and Humanitarian Law in 2021 and, more recently, with the scandalous draft law No. 5655. Every now and then, a small piece of the Constitution gives rise to scandals, rallies and heated discussions, and each time only the President is accused of not wanting to do something with a given draft law. With time and further regular law violations, the systematic problem of the disproportionate power of the head of state may come to the fore. Yet, at present, it is possible to observe a reaction to just piecemeal symptoms but not to the source of the disease.

The lack of a diagnosis as such is the worst part of the whole situation. Should he wish to do so, the President may stop the work of the entire state machinery by simply not letting anything whatsoever reach Holos Ukrayiny (Voice of Ukraine, an official herald). In retrospect, it can be seen how the head of state abuses this imprecision of the Constitution increasingly more, turning a blind eye to an inconvenient draft law at the right moment. No one can control this, as there is no system of checks and balances in this regard. This is the most alarming red flag of all those noted earlier.

But in addition to the public, there is another group of people for whom the status quo is not beneficial. These are MPs themselves. Ultimately, it is they that suffer most from such arbitrariness of the President. The entire outcome of their work can be crossed out by being ignored — and what if the most important draft law of the opposition party or even the coalition itself is sent to purgatory in the Presidential Office?

Maybe the Constitutional Court has a solution? It repeatedly issued interpretations of Article 94 of the Constitution — in 1997, 1998, and 2008. But there is no answer to the question of what to do when the President does not sign laws. Instead, its decisions concernув the method of calculating days (15 calendar or working days), the peculiarities of submitting proposals and imposing vetoes, signing laws adopted in referendums and the entry into force of the Constitution. Naturally, even under martial law, a group of MPs can turn to the Constitutional Court and ask it to explain the provisions of the Basic Law. However, the court may refuse to address this issue. For example, in 2008, concerning another problem, the court noted that “the procedure for signing and promulgating laws adopted by an all-Ukrainian referendum is not regulated in the Constitution of Ukraine. This issue is exclusively for the legislative body and does not belong to the competence of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine”.

It is quite doubtful that the court will construe Article 94 so that it is the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada who must sign draft laws not signed by the President. After all, such norms are not written directly and clearly. Should the court interpret insufficient regulation so that the President him/herself must sign draft laws that have not been signed before, the verdict will not change the situation: the President is acting this way now. The systemic problem remains the ability of the President to completely block the process of adopting laws that s/he does not like and the inability of the Verkhovna Rada to resolve this situation even if more than 300 MPs wish to do so.

Thus, the most realistic way to solve the problem is to amend the Constitution. This is important, at least for MPs themselves, because their own gains will then be guaranteed. And taking into account the fact that the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada have not been considered as something mandatory for a long time, a comprehensive reform suggests itself. But this should really be the position of the majority — after all, an amendment to the Constitution needs the votes of more than 300 lawmakers.

Still, it must be noted that the Constitution’s changes should be expected after the war, as the Basic Law may not be amended under martial law. This, of course, does not mean that the mentioned reform is not overdue, and public discussions are extremely needed. Although currently, no one from MPs’ chambers articulates the need for specific reforms, there is hope for change, not least thanks to the infamous law draft No. 5655.

Verkhovna Rada is one of the most important state institutions. It was that before, but during the war, the Verkhovna Rada increased its importance even more. If, on February 24, the members of the Verkhovna Rada had dispersed and had not approved the President’s decrees on the introduction of martial law and general mobilization, had not adapted the legislation, and had not redistributed budget funds. It would have made a compelling and centralized state counteraction to Russian aggression impossible.

Oleksandr Kornienko noted that “The beginning of armed aggression and the introduction of martial law created many challenges in the work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, starting from the danger of holding long meetings of MPs and the difficulty of moving around the territory of Ukraine, ending with the impossibility of using traditional forms of communication […] Despite difficult times, the Parliament continued to be the heart of democracy since the first day of the full-scale invasion. After all, the citizens delegated the MPs the right to make decisions in tough times. And through dialogue between parliamentarians and civil society representatives, this heart beats even stronger in wartime”.

The full-scale invasion, in turn, also affected the MPs and the Verkhovna Rada. A lot of time has passed since February 24, the seventh regular session of the Verkhovna Rada ended, so it is possible to analyze how the full-scale invasion affected the work of the Verkhovna Rada. This analysis can have the following structure:

1. Adaptation of legislation to the conditions of a full-scale war
2. Reducing the influence of pro-russian politicians
3. Security measures of the Verkhovna Rada
4. Unexpected effects of war

Such was the first month of adaptation of the Verkhovna Rada to the war. However, the adaptation continued even after that. Priority needs have changed to more long-term and less urgent draft laws. But there were still many such needs. From February 24 to the end of the 7th session (September 6), adopted 229 laws (data only on laws adopted by the Verkhovna Rada as a whole. Resolutions, appeals, vetoed laws and proposals of the President were not taken into account).

The number of laws passed during the 7th session during which martial law fell is a record number of laws passed during one session for the third to ninth convocations (data for the first two convocations are not available in the open data format on which the calculation was based).

If we consider the ninth convocation, half as many laws were adopted during the entire 6th session as during six months of the war; another comparison – 229 laws are more than were adopted during the 3rd and 4th session of the ninth convocation together.

The record number of adopted laws is the result of joint efforts of MPs and employees of the Apparatus of the Verkhovna Rada. Achieving political consensus, expert-analytical processing, and processing of draft laws in committees – all these processes have been significantly accelerated. For example, the time for drafting draft laws in committees, compared to the 6th session, decreased by 12-200 days, depending on the committee. The overall speed of adoption of draft laws, in comparison with the 6th session, has also significantly increased. Half of all draft laws passed in the first reading and, as a whole were passed in less than 8 days. For 80% of such draft laws, the time for adoption decreased by 10-100 days. The time spent processing draft laws between the first reading and adoption in the second reading has also decreased. For 70% of such draft laws, the time was reduced by 30-112 days. For 70% of draft laws adopted in the second reading and as a whole, the time from registration to adoption also decreased by 42-168 days.

Moreover, the number of days required for the draft law’s adoption correlates (there is a moderate positive correlation according to the Spearman method, rho = 0.46, p-value = 2.986e-13) with the number of days that have passed since February 24. In the first days/weeks/months after February 24, draft laws went from registration to adoption faster than later.

Another feature of Verkhovna Rada’s adaptation to martial law was the workload division between committees. If we compare the number of submitted conclusions to draft laws for the 6th session and during the six months of the war, the number of submitted conclusions increased the most:

• Committee on National Security (+ 48 provided conclusions),
• Committee on Finance (+ 39 provided conclusions)
• Committee on Economic Development (+ 36 provided conclusions)

The Committee on Social Policy reduced the number of submitted conclusions the most during the six months of the war (-15 submitted conclusions). In addition, the Committee on Law Enforcement was very busy during the 6th session and martial law. This committee provided 71 conclusions during the six months of the war.

The situation when a large number of laws are considered and adopted in a short time is what I would like to call a “turbo regime.” At least, such a name will suit the work of the Verkhovna Rada during martial law more than the work of the Verkhovna Rada during 1-2 sessions. After all, during the six months of the war, one and a half times more laws were adopted. Some of the terms of the passage of draft laws were shorter than during 1-2 sessions. However, the number of violations of the legislative procedure during 1-2 sessions was more significant than during martial law. During six months of the war, the share of laws that had procedural violations was 41-67% (depending on the type of violation). And during 1-2 sessions, it was 45-83%. The violation of the procedure is, to some extent, a payment for the high speed of passage and a significant number of adopted laws. Oleksandr Kornienko noted that the violations are directly related to martial law: “what is a violation in peacetime is a normal practice for the work of the parliament under martial law”.

Another negative manifestation of adaptation to martial law conditions is unusual parliamentary practices— for example – «matryoshka» laws. “Matryoshkas” can be called laws, the content of which cannot be guessed from the name alone because one word hides several laws, different in Regulation and content. Usually, such laws have one range and focus at the first reading stage. But then amendments are made to them, which add completely new provisions that were not only not considered during the first reading but also belong to a different area of Regulation. This practice is a violation of Part 1 of Art. 116 of the Regulation:

Proposals and amendments to the draft law, prepared for the second reading, can be made only to the text of the draft law (sections, chapters, articles, parts, clauses, subsections, paragraphs, sentences) that the Verkhovna Rada adopted as a basis. As an exception, the main committee may consider the proposals and amendments made regarding corrections, clarifications, and elimination of errors and/or contradictions in the text of the draft law. Other structural parts of the draft law and/or other legislative acts that were not considered in the first reading if the need for their introduction as indicated in the conclusions of this main committee and/or expert division of the Apparatus of the Verkhovna Rada and announced by the chairman of the plenary session during the consideration of such a draft law in the first reading. Such proposals and amendments must correspond to the subject of legal Regulation of the draft law.

For example, we can mention two cases. The first example – the Research Service of the Verkhovna Rada was created through the adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Regarding the Peculiarities of Proceedings in Cases of Establishing the Fact of Birth or Death of a Person in Conditions of Martial Law or State of Emergency and in Temporarily Occupied Territories.” Establishing birth or death is quite far from the parliamentary research service. However, these two unrelated issues were merged into one law.

The second example is the Law “On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine Regarding the Functioning of the Civil Service and Local Self-Government During the Martial Law.” The version of the first reading, it referred to the distribution of powers between local self-government bodies and military administrations. And at the stage of amendments to the second reading, provisions were added that expanded the powers of the Verkhovna Rada and the President (in particular, based on these new norms, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights was dismissed). The new provisions added to the second reading not only did not correspond to the subject of legal regulation of the draft law in the wording of the first reading but also violated the Constitution (in fact, they expanded the powers of the Verkhovna Rada and the President).

According to Oleksandr Kornienko, the need to adopt draft laws is also due to the war: “The practice of introducing the draft into the original text before the second reading is not extremely common, but sometimes it is necessary. Such a mechanism saves time for prompt decision-making or in cases where the issue is consensual and does not require additional procedures of passage and discussion. As in the case of the Research Service […] Therefore, in conditions of war or emergency, this practice is acceptable”.

In addition to “matryoshka”, during martial law, the cases when draft laws are revised after voting on the text of this draft law have become much more frequent. At the same time, the Verkhovna Rada almost always authorizes amendments to draft laws. It isn’t easy to find a case when a draft law is adopted differently. The essence of the revision mechanism is that MPs need to see the final text of the draft law they are voting on. The final text is determined not by people democratically elected and authorized to adopt laws but by the Apparatus employees. These employees may be more qualified in the issues of normative design and technical and legal nuances of the law-making process, but they need a direct mandate to adopt laws. Experts note that in the first months of the functioning of the Verkhovna Rada of the ninth convocation, the practice of authorizing amendments was necessary to ensure the minimum quality of the adopted laws in conditions of lack of experience and knowledge. However, later its purpose was forgotten, and currently (despite the MPs gaining experience and knowledge of standard design), the revision is used everywhere.

The assessment of the practice of universal refinement is different. Some experts consider this practice extremely negative. The negative evaluation of this practice is based on the position that MPs do not see the final text for which they are voting. This means both spaces for violations and manipulations with the final text and the limitation of the MP’s mandate. Other experts consider this practice acceptable. This position is based on the fact that, in most cases, minor technical and legal editing is carried out, and the essence of the law remains the same. Oleksandr Kornienko adheres to this position: “The procedure itself to a greater extent concerns the legal style of the text and the documentary design of the law, ways of constructing its text, requisites, etc. […] And the prescription “technical and legal refinement” is a tool for improving the legal perfection of the text of a draft law or law”.

The term “pro-russian politicians” is used for MPs who were part of the “Opposition Platform for Life” faction, taking into account the decision of the National Security Council of March 18, 2022, according to which the activities of the party of the same name were suspended due to “anti-Ukrainian political and organizational activities (…) demonstration of manifestations collaborationism (…) dissemination of information about the justification, recognition as legitimate, denial of the armed aggression of the russian federation against Ukraine”.

The main event that testified to the decrease in the influence of pro-Russian politicians was the dissolution of the “Opposition Platform for Life” (OPFL – ex-party of former fugitive president Yanukovuch). As of the beginning of the full-scale invasion, about a quarter of the MPs of this faction left Ukraine, and some turned out to be state traitors. Gradually, some MPs began to leave this faction. On March 20, it became known about the National Security Council’s decision to ban some parties’ activities, including the Opposition Platform for Life faction. However, it did not discuss the faction’s activities.

As of April 14, those MPs who were still part of the Opposition Platform for Life faction reacted to the announcement of the suspension of the faction’s activities. On April 21, they created the parliamentary group “Platform for Life and Peace”. According to Art. 59 of the Regulations, a MP may belong to only one faction or group. Therefore, the entry of these MPs into the Platform for Life and Peace led to the fact that these MPs ceased to be members of the Opposition Platform for Life faction. This, in turn, led to the fact that the number of MPs in the Opposition Platform for Life faction fell below the minimum set level. And by Part 4 of Art. 60 of the Regulations, on May 12, the dissolution of the “Opposition Platform for Life” faction was announced precisely based on a decrease in its numerical composition.

A month later, on May 22, the MP group “Recovery of Ukraine” was created. It included mainly those MPs who left the Opposition Platform for Life faction before April 14.

On May 3, a law was adopted, according to which the suspension of the party’s activity entails the suspension of the faction’s activity, and the banning of the party leads to the dissolution of the faction. This law entered into force on May 18. That is, the dissolution of the Opposition Platform for Life faction is not related to its activities, the National Security Council’s decisions, or the party’s banning. At the same time, the MPs of this faction are not deprived of mandates because there is an exclusive list of constitutional grounds for this, which still need to be satisfied.

MPs who were part of Opposition Platform for Life faction significantly reduced their parliamentary activity. Before the dissolution of the Opposition Platform for Life faction, MPs of this faction initiated only 2 draft laws during the six months of the war; another 4 draft laws were created by MPs from the newly formed group of the Platform for Life and Peace (i.e., former members of the Opposition Platform for Life faction), and another 10 draft laws were initiated by MPs of the “Restoration of Ukraine” group. The groups “Restoration of Ukraine” and Platform for Life and Peace were created mainly by MPs from the disbanded Tthis Platform. For comparison, MPs from the “For the Future” group initiated 9 draft laws, and from the “Trust” group – 4 draft laws. If we compare these indicators with the indicators of the factions, the MPs of the “Fatherland” faction initiated 24 draft laws; all other factions initiated even more draft laws. The MPs who were part of the Opposition Platform for Life faction continued to create draft laws, although less than at the pre-war level.

Nevertheless, draft laws registered by former members of the Opposition Platform for Life faction remain laws. At the same time, all other factions and groups (their MPs) initiated at least one adopted law. As for the draft laws considered in the hall, only one draft law initiated by the MP from “Restoration of Ukraine” was considered in the session hall. Draft laws initiated by MPs from Opposition Platform for Life faction were not considered in the hall.

The decline in the influence of pro-Russian politicians is partly due to their physical absence from Ukraine. Ilya Kyva, a former MP and member of the Opposition Platform for Life faction, left Ukraine before the war and later lost his mandate as an MP. Another part of the MPs left Ukraine and, during the six months of the war, did not return at all or almost did not return. The most famous are Vadym Rabinovych, Vadym Stolar, Hryhorii Surkis, Serhii Lyovochkin, Nataliia Korolevska, Taras Kozak. And Viktor Medvedchuk escaped from custody, then he was found and arrested, and in the end, he was exchanged for Ukrainian prisoners of war. Of the well-known and influential former members of the Opposition Platform for Life faction, only the head of the faction, Yurii Boyko, remained in Ukraine and continued to work in the parliament.

With the invasion’s beginning, the Verkhovna Rada meetings began to be held semi-secret. Meetings are not broadcast live, and the general public needs to be informed about them. The corridors of the Verkhovna Rada are closed to journalists (except representatives of the Rada TV channel). The territory around the Verkhovna Rada is also completed. And the entrance to the “government quarter,” in which the Verkhovna Rada is located, is carried out with special passes.

In the spring, MPs were informed about the meeting 2-3 days in advance to get to Kyiv. Such secrecy is necessary given the danger of rocket attacks on the parliament. In March, the Verkhovna Rada was in the zone of potential impact by russian Multiple rocket launcher, but even after the retreat of the russians from near Kyiv, there is a danger of impact by ballistic or cruise missiles. Despite the threat, MPs held and continue to hold meetings in the building at Hrushevsky 5 St.

For example, 90% of all laws adopted in the first reading were considered in the hall for less than 2 minutes. And if the law passed two readings and both took place after February 24, then for half of such draft laws, consideration took up to 6 minutes.

Moreover, the amount of time spent considering the draft law in the session hall correlates (there is a moderate positive correlation according to the Spearman method, rho = 0.57, p-value = 2.2e-16) with how many days have passed since February 24. In the first days/weeks/months after February 24, draft laws were considered in the session hall more quickly than later.

For the physical safety of the MPs, they had the opportunity to obtain firearms. Firearms were distributed in late February, at the beginning of a full-scale invasion. Then there was information that they wanted to “physically destroy the MPs or force them to vote on the surrender documents.” Representatives of almost all factions and groups took advantage of this opportunity.

Another measure for the security of  MPs was the closure of information about them. On the website of the Verkhovna Rada, information about MPs (personal pages of MPs) still needs to be made available. In addition, from March to April 21, data is only available regarding the votes of MPs, as changes were made to the settings of the Rada-3 voting system.

The Verkhovna Rada also partially secures information on the work of the Conciliation Council and committees. The Conciliation Council is now meeting in a secure session. Some committees have also switched to a closed work mode – they do not publish protocols, transcripts, or meeting information. Most reports were closed by the Committee on National Security and the Committee on Law Enforcement Enforcement. Such measures make it possible to control information about what Verkhovna Rada is planning in the future.

The Constitution of Ukraine grants the right of a legislative initiative to three subjects – the President, the Cabinet of Ministers, and MPs of the Verkhovna Rada. All of them used this right during the war. However, the war unexpectedly changed the distribution of roles between these subjects in the legislative process.

War is an emergency, a crisis, and in times of war and emergencies, power is usually concentrated in the hands of a small circle of people for efficient and prompt decision-making.

The Government reduced the share of registered draft laws to 10%, registering 62 draft laws during the six months of the war (usually, the Government registered about 100 draft laws per session). While MPs of the “Servant of the People” faction initiated almost 62% of draft laws, which is a record share for the entire ninth convocation.

The average time to receive the committee’s opinion on the first reading has more than halved, compared to the 6th session, both for the President and MPs. But the average time for obtaining conclusions for the Government has increased. The situation is similar for the passage of draft laws. The time from registration to the adoption of the draft law, in the second reading and as a whole, for MPs decreased by a third, while for the Government, it remained at almost the same level. At the same time, we cannot rule out the possibility that the Government formally registered the most urgent initiatives through MPs. One of the possible reasons is the formalized and complex procedure for developing and approving the text of the draft law by the Government and the absence of formal requirements for the preparation of parliamentary draft laws.

Many more exciting changes occurred with the legislative role of the President. The President has almost wholly distanced himself from domestic politics. 28 of the 30 adopted presidential laws are ratifications, international agreements, and approving decrees (continuation of mobilization and martial law). The other two laws are relatively symbolic:

1. Amending Article 73 of the Labor Code of Ukraine regarding establishing a holiday – the Day of Ukrainian Statehood – was adopted in the first reading and as a whole.
2. Establishment of legal and social guarantees for citizens of the Republic of Poland who are in the territory of Ukraine – adopted in the second reading and in general.

However, the draft laws of these subjects still need to undergo approval by the President. His busyness can explain changes in the legislative role of the President with other areas of work, and this should not be perceived as necessarily negative. It is possible that martial law demonstrated (by showing in critical conditions) the distribution of spheres of responsibility in power should be based on what principles the distribution of spheres of power should be.

Another unexpected effect of a full-scale war is the depoliticization of parliament. The scale of political life and political discussions (political in the sense of politics) has significantly decreased since February 24, especially in the spring. It gradually began to recover in the summer, but it still had insignificant volumes. But the military actions, closure of meetings, and information about the work of the Verkhovna Rada also significantly reduced political statements and discussions in the parliament itself.

Previously, MPs tried to speak from the podium for any reason, using all available time (15 minutes for the first reading and an unspecified amount of time to consider amendments in the second). During six months of the war (as already mentioned), 90% of all laws adopted in the first reading were considered in the hall for less than 2 minutes. And if the law passed two readings and both took place after February 24, then for half of such draft laws, consideration took up to 6 minutes. One reading usually took 2-3 minutes, which is time for 1 performance and 2-3 lines. According to the testimony of the MPs, speeches began to be devoted to the essence of laws and constructive discussion. Meetings of the Conciliation Council were also closed, which led to its members stopping using this platform for political statements. In this unexpected way, one of the recommendations of the Mission of the European Parliament was implemented.

On this occasion, Oleksandr Kornienko noted: “the meeting hall was transformed from a platform for debating political positions into a place for making constructive decisions to ensure the country’s vital activities in conditions of armed aggression. At the same time, most of the discussions, as I already mentioned, moved to the preparatory stage in the format of meetings, active interdepartmental working groups, round tables, and work at the level of subcommittees and Committees of the Verkhovna Rada”.

The Verkhovna Rada spent only 36 hours of total time considering draft laws. This is half as much as in session 6 (84 hours) and three times less than was spent during session 5 – the previous spring session (134 hours). But at the same time, a record number of laws were adopted during the third-ninth convocation of the Verkhovna Rada.

During the six months of the war, the Verkhovna Rada was able to mobilize, demonstrating a high pace of processing draft laws and a record number of adopted laws. At the same time, high rates and a record number were accompanied by increased violations and questionable law-making practices. At the same time, the key topics on which Verkhovna Rada worked were defense, security, and finance. And the central activity area was the legislation adaptation to the realities of martial law.

The influence of pro-Russian politicians generally decreased but did not disappear entirely and has many exciting nuances.

Security measures have changed many aspects of the activities of the Verkhovna Rada – a large part of the information has become closed, and the consideration of draft laws has become much faster.

An unexpected impact of martial law was the redistribution of roles between subjects in the legislative process. The President left internal politics to the discretion of the Cabinet of Ministers and MPs. At the same time, the Verkhovna Rada turned into a voting machine, reducing political discussions to a minimum.

In general, in their majority, the MPs of the ninth convocation demonstrated a statesmanlike position, ensuring smooth and productive work of the Verkhovna Rada during six months of the war. Ukrainian parliamentarians will win if people in the parliament consider an independent Ukraine an absolute value.

This paper was prepared as part of the project “Parliament and Accountability of the Security Sector in Ukraine” (PASS Ukraine), which the Agency implements jointly with the Parliamentary Centre (Canada), in cooperation with the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and with the support of Global Affairs Canada within the framework of the Peace and Stabilization Operations Program (PSOPs). This was a collaborative effort involving members of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives and the Parliamentary Centre’s teams.A special acknowledgment goes to Rick Stewart, Legislative Impact Assessment Expert, for his continuous support and cooperation on this Handbook.

The purpose behind creating the handbook is to share the experience and knowledge acquired by the staff of these Committees more broadly, so that staff of other Rada committees and the structural units that examine draft laws may also gain a better understanding and ability to prepare good quality analysis of legislative proposals.

The Handbook is structured into four main parts, accompanied by a contextual prologue and epilogue, as well as related appendices.

PROLOGUE – provides a brief overview of the OECD’s best-practice Principles that should guide the tools, practices and institutional arrangements that help support a robust law-making system.

PART 1 – “Nature and Value of Legislative Impact Analysis” – describes the concept of impact assessment in legislative and regulatory processes, the importance of impact assessment of draft laws for the legislative process, and international experience of using impact assessment in legislative and regulatory processes.

PART 2 – “Legislative Approval Process, Role of Impact Assessments” – provides a brief overview of the norms of the legislative process in Canada and Ukraine, respectively, the essence and role of accompanying documents, and expert-analytical support of draft laws by the structural divisions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

PART 3 – “Legislative Impact Assessment Methodology” – describes Canadian and Ukrainian practices in developing legislative impact assessment methodology, detailing the assessment stages and structural elements for its implementation. Taking into account the experience with preparing and using legislative impact assessments, brief considerations on ensuring efficiency in the assessment process are also presented.

PART 4 – “Gender-Based Analysis – GBA+” – allows readers to familiarize themselves with the essence and role of gender analysis as an analytical process that assesses the impact of draft laws on different groups of men and women, boys and girls.

EPILOGUE – provides a few observations about challenges in the current legislative system of Ukraine that hinder the ability for effective impact assessment, in order to help raise awareness of the consequences they have for effective decision-making.

APPENDICES – this section provides more detailed information ion the methodology of legislative impact assessment (tailored to both the Canadian and Ukrainian contexts), a list of valuable references to sources regarding impact assessment in legislative and regulatory processes, and examples of legislative impact assessment carried out by staff supporting two Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine committees: the Committee on Law Enforcement and the Committee on Ukraine’s Integration into the European Union.

It is useful to note that the analysis conducted by the Committee on Law Enforcement to the Law “On the Right to Civilian Firearms” was prepared earlier than the legislative impact assessment prepared by the Committee on Integration of Ukraine into the EU to the Law “On Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine to Improve Activities of “joint investigative groups”. Accordingly, the evaluation methodology used by the respective committees is somewhat different in structure because over the course of the training and development project, Committee staff adapted and changed the way the methodology is applied to better reflect the Ukrainian context and provide more effective support to Ukrainian decision-makers.

As part of the PASS Ukraine project, Ukrainian MPs Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Mariia Ionova and Yehor Cherniev visited Canada to strengthen ties with Canadian parliamentarians.

Canada is an important partner of Ukraine, whose role and support has grown significantly since the start of the full-scale invasion. Therefore, it is crucial to maintain a dialogue and share views on how exactly Canadian support to Ukraine can be kept and aligned with today’s needs. The cooperation of the Verkhovna Rada with the parliaments of other countries plays a particularly meaningful role in this area for the purpose of telling our partners the truth at the highest level, convincing them of the importance of supporting Ukraine and preventing the crimes that Russia commits against the Ukrainian people from being ignored.

During the visit, Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze and Mariia Ionova already met with members of the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Group to tell about the development of the situation in Ukraine and specific steps being taken by the Parliament for non-military resistance to the Russian aggression. The parliamentarians also had the opportunity to talk with the Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, the Honourable Anthony Roth, and the Canada’s Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security, Jacqueline O’Neill.

Russia’s aggression can be a threat to the whole world even after Ukraine’s victory in this war. That is why Ukraine is now looking for ways to strengthen the country’s defence capabilities and create conditions for stability and security when the war is in place and after it’s over.

One of these ways is Ukraine’s accession to NATO, which Ukrainian officials are talking about with the international community at all levels. Last week, as part of the PASS Ukraine project, Head of the Permanent Delegation of Ukraine to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Ukrainian MP Yehor Cherniev discussed the security and defence agenda with Canadian counterparts.