Exactly three years ago Verkhovna Rada started the parliamentary reform with the adoption of the Resolution no. 4219 committing to take measures to implement 52 recommendations of the Roadmap on Internal Reform and Capacity Building for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine proposed by the European Parliament Needs Assessment Mission to the VRU. Today the Parliament is still overwhelmed with legislative spam, and the level of Ukrainians’ trust in the Verkhovna Rada reaches the historic minimum. This situation is accompanied by insufficient quality of draft laws and analytical support of legislative initiatives. The Agency for Legislative Initiatives decided to analyze the progress of the parliamentary reform.

In the document “Assessment of Internal Reform and Capacity Building of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine” we evaluate the status of the implementation of all 52 recommendations using own developed methodology, as well as provide recommendations on way forward. 

The status of implementation of all 52 Roadmap recommendations is estimated at 87 of 208 points, which is 41,8%.

The research is dedicated to the assessment of the integration of civil service principles in the VRU Apparatus. The aim was to identify the problematic aspects of the work of the parliamentary service and to develop the most effective approaches to strengthening the Apparatus as an institution. For this purpose, the study considered the civil service quality criteria in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On Civil Service”, analyzed the relevant legal framework, reviewed the results of the interviews with the Apparatus’ civil servants and compared Ukrainian and international experience of approval of the parliamentary service ethical and professional standards.

The Agency prepared the research for Legislative Initiatives with the support of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Ukraine Office.

The opinions and statements expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the position of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Ukraine Office.

On December 20, 2017, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine held a press briefing devoted to the presentation of policy papers on the topic “Concept of ‘End-to-End’ Legislative Process” and “Proposals Concerning the Policy of Government’s Reporting in Parliament”.

The event was organized by the Agency Legislative Initiatives in co-operation with Dmytro Lubinets, MP of Ukraine, Secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Rules of Parliamentary Procedure and Support to Work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine within the framework of the USAID RADA Program: Responsible, Accountable, Democratic Assembly implemented by the East Europe Foundation.

The papers were presented by:

• Dmytro Lubinets, MP of Ukraine;
• Oleksandr Zaslavskyi, author of the study, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives.

The draft concept paper on the “end-to-end” legislative process contains an analysis of existing practices, an overview of international experience, as well as proposals as to the concept of the “end-to-end” legislative process reform focused on strengthening coordination between legislative initiative actors. This document suggests alternative options of changing the legislative process “end to end”, which can be provisionally called “government-centered” (based on the experience of France), “parliament-centered” (based on the US experience), and “the concept of minimum necessary changes” (based on analysis of existing practices in Ukraine).

The document “Proposals Concerning the Policy of Government’s Reporting in Parliament” focuses on the main issues of communication between Government and Parliament, analyzes international experience, and provides suggestions for improving communication between Government and the Verkhovna Rada.

Dmytro Lubinets, MP of Ukraine:

I am very pleased that now the activities of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine have an effect – a very positive one – on public organizations, which help MPs and offer their proposals on how to improve the work of the Verkhovna Rada and activities associated with legislative initiatives

Oleksandr Zaslavskyi, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, presented two analytical documents: “Concept of ‘End-to-End’ Legislative Process” and “Proposals Concerning the Policy of Government’s Reporting in Parliament”, prepared within the framework of the USAID RADA Program: Responsible, Accountable, Democratic Assembly implemented by the East Europe Foundation.

Mr. Zaslavskyi observed that at the end of February 2016, the European Parliament’s needs assessment mission led by Pat Cox presented its Roadmap on Internal Reform and Capacity-Building for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. On March 17, 2016, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the Resolution on Measures to Implement the 52 Recommendations Contained in the Roadmap.

The presented policy papers are developed to clarify and extend the recommendations contained in the Roadmap. The documents analyze the current procedures and practices of decision-making in the Ukrainian parliament, examine the international experience and suggest a certain vision for improvement of these processes. Among the specific problems analyzed in the documents, Mr. Zaslavskyi highlighted the lack of strategic planning in policy-making, as well as the lack of coordination and communication between the legislative and executive branches of government in the legislative process.

The proposals that require special attention include: review of the status of the Government’s Program of Activity (in the event of a Government’s failure to present this document, it should resign); the agenda of sessions should be formed on the basis and in pursuance of the Government’s Program of Activity; any document should be based on the results of monitoring and assessment of already implemented laws or certain policies. Moreover, any legislative initiative should come with a monitoring and assessment plan approved by the Main Committee of the Verkhovna Rada.

The debate was broadcast live on the RADA TV channel, which made it possible to engage a wide range of viewers of the RADA TV channel as well as the online audience to discuss the topic of parliamentary reform. Besides, the Facebook page of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives invited to take part in a survey on key issues of parliamentary reform through online voting.

The event was organized by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives within the framework of the USAID RADA Program: Responsible, Accountable, Democratic Assembly implemented by the East Europe Foundation.

Moderator: Oleksandr Zaslavskii, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives.

Speakers:

• MP Olena Sotnyk, member of the parliamentary faction of the political party Samopomich (Self Reliance), secretary of the VRU Committee on European Integration;
• MP Yuriy Miroshnychenko, member of the parliamentary faction of the political party Opozytsiynyi Blok (Opposition Bloc), Chairman of a Subcommittee of the Committee on Legislative Support of Law Enforcement.

Experts:

• Yuriy Hanuschak, MP of Ukraine of the 6th convocation;
• Volodymyr Kryzhanivsky, MP of Ukraine of the 1st convocation, Senior Advisor to the USAID RADA Program.

The debate focused on discussing specific proposals outlined in the Roadmap on Internal Reform and Capacity-Building for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine prepared by the European Parliament’s Needs Assessment Mission led by Pat Cox.

There are a number of challenges that hinder the effective work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. From October 2015 through January 2016, the European Parliament’s Needs Assessment Mission led by Pat Cox was working in the Verkhovna Rada to identify and analyze these challenges. Based on this work, the Mission drafted the Report and the Roadmap on Internal Reform and Capacity-Building for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. On March 17, 2016, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a Resolution based on this document, which contains 52 recommendations on improving the work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as regards institutional capacity, improving the quality of the legislative process, ensuring compliance of legislation with EU regulations, etc. Since then, a number of legislative initiatives have been registered to implement the relevant recommendations, which, however, have not been adopted, not even as a basis. A year ago, the Working Group on Parliamentary Reform was established under the leadership of the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; its task is to ensure coordination of the positions of parliamentary factions on specific decisions in the process of implementation of the 52 recommendations. Besides, there is an additional platform for finding a political compromise – i.e. the Monnet Dialogue Platform.

The first set of issues discussed by MPs and experts concerned the organization of the process of discussing and aligning political decisions on parliamentary reform and search for a political compromise. Another important aspect concerned the issue of how effective this process is.

The second set of issues focused on the bills approved within the framework of the working group and the Monnet Dialogue Platform. These are the Draft Law “On Amendments to the Laws of Ukraine “On Committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine” and “On Central Executive Bodies” regarding the optimization of the work of the committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and relation between their areas of competence and the ministries’ fields of activity.

This bill was drafted in pursuance of recommendation 17 of the Roadmap stipulating the need to strengthen the monitoring role of committees due to improved communication with specialized committees. Yet, why has it not been approved? Do the provisions set in the bill comply with the recommendations? To what extent can this bill solve the problem described in the Roadmap?

The third set of issues focused on the problem of the “legislative tsunami” or, to use parliamentarians’ term, “legislative spam”, which the European Parliament’s Assessment Mission recognized to be a major problem of the Parliament’s work. This term is used to describe the huge number of legislative initiatives registered by MPs that become a burden for the expert departments of the Secretariat, for the parliamentary committees and Parliament as a whole. Accordingly, recommendation 6 of the Roadmap stipulates that 20 top-priority legislative initiatives of MPs should be selected and considered based on the “float principle” – i.e., Parliament will go on to consider the next parliamentary initiative only after adoption of one of these 20 as a whole. During the numerous discussions, the participants inter alia voiced the following options: setting of the minimum number of MPs to execute the right of legislative initiative; introduction of the institution of legislative proposal as a way to enforce the MPs’ right of legislative initiative; introduction of the institution of support letters for legislative initiatives of individual MPs; granting the right of legislative initiative to the committees of the Verkhovna Rada.

Which of these options, according to MPs and experts, are the most acceptable for the Verkhovna Rada? How significant is the problem of “legislative tsunami”? Can it be solved in one of these ways?

The event was organized by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives in partnership of the Committee for Informatization and Communications and International IDEA.

Oleksandr Danchenko, Chair of the Parliamentary Committee for Informatization and Communications said at the Committee Hearings:

Olena Matuzko, Secretary of the Committee for Informatization and Communications of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine mentioned:

Svitlana Matviienko, Chairwoman of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, noticed that the changes which occur around the whole world induce developments also in Ukraine. In particular, this refers to the possibility of electronic voting to be implemented in Ukraine in 2024. Nonetheless, it is quite an exaggeration to insist on the preparedness of the state. The Green Paper on the Information Security of the Electoral Process, which will be finalized taking into account today’s discussion and recommendations, aims to accelerate this progress.

Danylo Mialkovskyi, Head of the Department of the Administration of the State Service for Special Communication and Information Protection, spoke of up-to-date mechanisms for information security in the election process. Mr. Mialkovskyi emphasized the fact that the introduction of electronic voting could motivate youth to take part in elections, which indicates the stage of democracy development in the country. The introduction of electronic voting requires not only the reassessment of the election infrastructure but also revision of institutional and resource capabilities of Ukraine. Considering the practices for building confidence in electronic voting, Mr. Mialkovskyi claimed that it is very important to accurately identify a person who votes. This is possible to do by using the Ukrainian passport as ID-card as well as by implementing the technology of digital signing with mobile terminals – mobile ID. On the other hand, we need to pay special attention to the legal regulation of these technical tools.

Oleksandr Stelmakh, Director of the Disposer Service of the State Register of Voters, Central Election Commission, said that since 1998 the Central Election Commission has a data analytics system “Elections”, which embraces all stages of the election process. Mr. Stelmakh pointed at issues and challenges to the high-quality election process, which are the following: the replacement of the electoral legislation every election; the absence of regular election commissions; the neglect of new election technologies; unreasonable cutbacks to funding for information programs; the poor status on the state register data accumulation and ID-card distribution.

Yevhen Yakovenko, Deputy Head of the Division as part of the Department of the Counterintelligence Protection of the State Interests in the Field of Information Security of the Security Service of Ukraine, noticed that the Central Election Commission was one of the first institutions in Ukraine that built two of the most important information systems – a system of election automatization and system of the state register of voters. These systems are under constant cyberattacks of hostile intelligence agencies. Two main types of attacks are the following: information field, which is a creation of a bad reputation for the state, and intrusion into the work of these systems with the aim to block information or distort it.

Oleksandr Ryzhenko, Head of the State Agency on e-Governance of Ukraine, emphasized the importance of the adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Electronic Trust Services”, which can help to introduce new election technologies and election services for citizens that will simplify the exchange of electronic documents for citizens. Nevertheless, there are some questions that persist. Those are the following: access to information; digital inequality between the citizens who live in big cities and those who live in Ukrainian regions; improvement of the electronic identification of citizens. Mr. Ryzhenko agreed with previous speakers on the fact that informatization needs citizens’ confidence.

Peter Wolf, Technical Manager and Expert on Elections, Constitution-building, ICTs in elections, International IDEA, gave attention to electoral technologies and main trends in cybersecurity. Peter Wolf named main problems with cybersecurity during elections, which are the following: DDoS attacks, web hacking and manipulation with content; system hacking; information leaks; information and data accumulation; distribution of disinformation. Appropriate measures to undertake would be national interdepartmental coordination, detailed analysis of all processes, resource enhancement for protection, control, detection and counteraction to dangers.

Prof. Carsten Schürmann, IT University of Copenhagen, told how to provide elections with information and communication technologies and how to protect election systems. Prof. Schürmann paid attention to the fact that it is necessary to carefully prepare legislature and technologies to make elections transparent and effective. In addition, he specially emphasized the fact that the very technical system of elections is vulnerable to cyberattacks, no matter how much it is protected from hackers. You need to have hard evidence, such as bulletins, which you can verify after the publication of results. It is usually best to use both technologies and bulletins because only technologies guarantee transparency, and confidence in elections is formed by a conducted audit.

Peter Erben, IFES Ukraine Senior Country Director, IFES Senior Global Electoral Adviser, laid bare the specifics of the use of electoral technologies in Ukraine. Mr. Erben pointed out that ten years ago people were optimistic regarding the use of technologies in the election process, while today they have become very sceptical because of constant cyber threats and attacks. There has been a regression in the use of electoral technologies because of the confidence issues. Thanks to technologies we can promptly process big data, but they cannot replace old ‘manual’ methods. They can only complement and improve them. Mr. Erben mentioned that the state register of voters in Ukraine is very good. And traditionally, it is the most problematic election tool in the whole world. Nonetheless, Ukraine is not up to speed on the election result management.

Oleksii Koshel, Head of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, emphasized the importance of a high-quality and clearly spelled out legislative framework to avoid additional risks while using new technologies. Mr. Koshel indicated the risks for the Ukrainian electoral system, which are the following: constant Russian interventions and distrust in election results.

Yegor Aushev, Project Director at Cyber Guard, Co-founder of HACKEN, during the presentation of the conception of the Green paper for information security of the election process, made a point that this document is created to present some aspects of information security of the election process, detect problems, assess the scope, dynamics and acuteness of detected problems, and propose possible solutions.

Ihor Malchenyuk, Technology Strategist, Microsoft, Associated Member, Ukrainian Information Security Group (NGO), Co-founder of City Innovation Platform (NGO), emphasized that the Green paper gave attention to the analysis of important components of the election process, such as the state register of voters, vote counting, personal data protection. Cyberattacks of foreign countries is a challenge to national sovereignty, and they are threatening the political system, ruining confidence, damaging data, and hindering the use of technologies.

Victor Zhora, Director of Infosafe IT, analysed the evolution of the “Elections” system; investigated into how the Ukrainian electoral system changed from 2002 till 2017; revealed main phases of attacks on the electoral system of Ukraine, such as non-sanctioned interventions, distortion of results, and DDoS attacks; in addition, told about ways how to make the election process in Ukraine safer. Mr. Zhora emphasized that Ukraine was a testing platform to cyberattack an electoral system. Cybersecurity is a stumbling block in regards to the confidence in the election process.

Volodymyr Flonts, Head of SCO “Electronic Democracy”, made a point that the term ‘Internet-voting’ is already present in the Ukrainian legislation. Mr. Flonts mentioned that there are no hindrances to introduce open Internet-voting. It is harder to implement ballot voting. Without trust in the voting process we do not have the legitimacy of election.

At the end of the committee hearings, prof. Carsten Schürmann showed an example of a cyberattack on the electronic voting system – hacking of a voting machine. With the help of his computer, information search in the Internet, and simple tricks, prof. Schürmann could enter in 5 minutes in the system of the voting machine and changed the saved data.

During the period from October to November 2017, the USAID RADA Program held five discussions on parliamentary reform involving MPs of Ukraine, the staff of the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, representatives of Government, experts and the public, aiming to develop recommendations for their further implementation within parliamentary reform. Specifically, the discussion covered such issues as performing parliamentary oversight functions, interaction of the legislative and executive branches of power in the legislative process, strengthening of the role of committees and the VRU Secretariat, creation of a separate parliamentary service, tackling of the problem of the voting procedure, and the role of support documents in the legislative process.

Based on the results of discussions on parliamentary reform, the USAID RADA Program organized the conference “Role of Parliament, Heads of State, Government and the Public in Improving the Quality of the Legislative Process”.

Within the framework of the conference, the Agency for Legislative Initiatives presented the paper “Concept of End-to-End Legislative Process”.

Oleksandr Zaslavskyi, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives:

Thus, the first reading as a key stage in the consideration of bills is reduced. However, according to the logic of the Rules of Procedure the VRU, it is the first reading stage that should guarantee a comprehensive discussion of the problem, its relevance, proposed solutions, and expected results. The flaws of draft laws start becoming manifest during the further work on preparing it for the second reading which, due to its limitations, does not allow for opportunities to improve the key idea of the bill, making possible only pinpoint and technical changes.

Moreover, during the 4th and 5th sessions (February 2016 – January 2017), most of the bills were adopted in the first reading, and in total 116 out of 187 were approved as a whole (62%). At the same time, 51 out of the 116 above bills (44%) were adopted contrary to the opinions or comments of the Central Scientific Experts Office of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which prepares expert opinions for the first reading. Obviously, this attests to the poor quality of the bills, at least in terms of the regulation design mechanism, internal consistency of the text of acts, or compliance with the current laws, the Constitution or international agreements. What’s more, these bills are adopted almost without discussion and without prospects of improvement during the second reading.

This is coupled with the situation around transitional provisions of bills adopted as a whole. Such provisions often contain instructions for the Government to align relevant subordinate acts in pursuance of the adopted laws. Such transitional provisions with instructions (specific or general) are contained in 91 laws approved as a whole during the 4th and 5th sessions (47%). Obviously, the Government should be ready to comply with the laws. However, it is difficult to imagine how one can prepare for such a situation when it is impossible to predict stage and form of adoption of a draft law.

As a result, the Government faces the problem of enforcement of “imperfect” or poorly-prepared laws, which spawns the need to initiate more changes to the already adopted legislation. As a result, these parliamentary practices are one of the reasons why 60% to 75% of the bills adopted as a whole during the 8th session are secondary, that is, they amend existing laws. For the presently registered bills, this figure is even greater. To sum up, it can be argued that the lack of thorough work on draft laws and attempts to quickly adopt them without comprehensive discussion produce the need to register even more bills. This, in turn, is one of the sources of the very “legislative tsunami” referred to in the Roadmap of the European Parliament’s Needs Assessment Mission.

Mr. Zaslavskyi also focused on the recommendations that need to be implemented to improve the law-making process.

Including:

• drafting and adopting the Law “On Regulatory Acts” introducing appropriate amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine in order to ensure the effective distribution of the sphere of regulation of laws and by-laws, as well as to establish common rules for drafting bills, their coordination among the involved parties, the procedure of interaction of the entities of legislative activity, enactment of laws, enforcement, monitoring and evaluation of the enforcement of laws, etc. Moreover, this will help to introduce the procedure of voting for ordinary laws by a majority of those present in the session hall;
• setting forth in the Rules of Procedure of a certain number of 20 MPs’ signatures necessary to register bills or introducing letters of support for registered bills for them to be considered in the session hall (Draft Law No. 6640);
• introducing the mechanism of MP’s individual legislative proposal;
• limiting the right of MPs’ legislative initiative in financial and economic matters;
• review of the status of the Government’s Program of Activity. In the event of the Government’s failure to provide this document, it should resign (introduction of a constructive confidence vote). The session agenda should be drawn up on the basis and in pursuance of the Government’s Program of Activity;
• limiting the number of bills to be submitted for discussion within a week. For example, up to 10 bills. In this context, priority should be given to the government initiatives aimed at implementing the Government’s Program of Activity;
• introduction of a mechanism for political co-ordination (first of all with regard to compliance with the Coalition Agreement and the Government’ Program of Activity) of legislative initiatives (submitted as a brief analytical note containing primary information on the current policies in a particular area or symptoms of a problem). Only after examining this initiative for compliance with the government’s program of activity (and, possibly, the coalition agreement) and its approval by representatives of political factions and groups, can preparation of analytics be launched and the text of the bill be drafted;
• ensuring that the Government should prepare regulations for the enactment of the law before the law is adopted as a whole or that Government should give a reasoned explanation why no such regulations need to be drafted;
• ensuring that bills should be discussed under the full procedure in the first reading and that bills should be considered under the full-fledged procedure of three readings (as stipulated by the Rules of Procedure of the VRU);
• introduction of monitoring and evaluation of the enactment of a particular law or the state of legal regulation of a particular field of social relations based on any legislative initiative. Any legislative initiative should come with a monitoring and evaluation plan that should be agreed with the Main Committee of the Verkhovna Rada;
• introduction of a single platform for all legislative initiative entities to register, log and track all regulations. The Computerized Systems Department is developing a resource tentatively entitled “Electronic Draft Law” – a single platform for all legislative initiative entities to register draft acts, which will make it possible to track the status of the bill.

On December 06, 2017 the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center (2, Khreshchatyk Str.) hosted a presentation of the Policy Paper “Concept of ‘End-to-End’ Legislative Process”.

The event was organized by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives within the framework of the USAID RADA Program: Responsible, Accountable, Democratic Assembly implemented by the East Europe Foundation.

The event was attended by:

• MP Dmytro Lubinets, Secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Rules of Parliamentary Procedure and Support to Work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;
• Oleksandr Zaslavskyi, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives.

During the 4th and 5th sessions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the VIII convocation, 1506 bills were registered, of which only 12% have been approved. This testifies to the fact that the parliament is overwhelmed by the “legislative tsunami”, i.e. a situation where so many bills are registered that deputies are physically unable to deal with them.

The ease with which MPs of Ukraine can register bills, regular violations of parliamentary procedures, lack of established long-term planning practices and stable communication between the legislative power actors result in the wide-ranging chaos of policymaking that hinders Ukraine’s sustainable and steady development.

Thus, the development of an effective system for policy formulation, approval, harmonization, assessment, and review remains extremely topical for both the political leadership and Ukrainian society as a whole.

The policy paper “Concept of ‘End-to-End’ Legislative Process” contains an analysis of existing practices, an overview of international experience, as well as proposals as to the concept of the “end-to-end” legislative process reform focused on strengthening coordination between legislative initiative actors. This is set out in the first recommendation of the Roadmap on Internal Reform and Capacity-Building for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine prepared by the European Parliament’s needs assessment mission led by Pat Cox.

MP Dmytro Lubinets, Secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Rules of Parliamentary Procedure and Support to Work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, argues that “legislative spam” is a result of every MP’s desire to submit his personal legislative initiative, because for the public perceives the number of bills registered by an MP as the indicator of his effectiveness. One way out of this situation is to restrict the legislative initiative so that a bill could be submitted only by a group of MPs consisting of at least as many persons as the smallest faction of the current convocation of the Verkhovna Rada.

According to Mr. Lubinets, one of the factors undermining the effectiveness of the legislative process is political PR – a situation where committee hearings (especially when attended by the media) turn into a political show instead of a meaningful discussion. This results in significant delays in the process of reviewing bills, taking years for a bill to be submitted to the session hall after its registration. As a result, a large number of critically important draft laws are ping-ponged from one deputy committee to another for years. Another problem is posed by the process of considering amendments when amendments already approved for voting are again put to vote in the session hall by MPs.

Presenting the study, Oleksandr Zaslavskyi, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, pointed out that from October 2015 to January 2016, European Parliament’s needs assessment mission headed by Pat Cox had been working in the Verkhovna Rada and had come up with the Report and Roadmap on Internal Reform and Capacity-Building for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. On March 17, 2016, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the Resolution based on this document containing 52 recommendations for improvement of the work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in terms of its institutional capacity, improvement of the quality of the legislative process, ensuring compliance of the legislation with the EU regulations, etc. The first and most important recommendation is to develop an “end-to-end” concept of the legislative process.

The policy paper “Concept of ‘End-to-End’ Legislative Process” examines the legislative process in the context of communication of legislative initiative entities. Special attention is given to the problem of delimitation of the powers of legislative initiative entities, as well as gradual disturbance of the balance of the constitutionally mandated design of policy development. The study analyzes the mechanisms of cooperation of legislative initiative entities in the legislative process, as well as observance of procedures for consideration of bills. It examines the role of committees and mechanisms for monitoring, assessing and reviewing approved decisions. Much attention is given to alternative variants of improving the legislative process.

Mr. Zaslavskyi elaborated on the changes needed to improve the legislative process “end-to-end”, including:

• drafting and adopting the Law “On Regulations” involving the introduction of relevant amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine in order to ensure the effective distribution of the sphere of regulation of laws and by-laws;
• stipulation in the Rules of Procedure of the requirement to get the set number of 20 signatures of MPs for the registration of bills or introduction of letters of support for registered bills so that they could be considered in the session hall;
• limiting the number of bills to be submitted for discussion during the week, for example, to 10 bills;
• introduction of a mechanism of the political harmonization (first of all for compliance with the Coalition Agreement and the Government’s Program of Activity) of legislative initiatives;
• ensuring that Government should draft regulations for implementation of the law before the law is adopted as a whole or that Government should give a reasoned explanation why no such regulations need to be drafted;
• ensuring that any legislative initiative should include a monitoring and evaluation plan approved by the Main Committee of the Verkhovna Rada;
• introduction of a single platform for all legislative initiative entities to register, log and track all regulations.

The event involved 10 procedural discussions aimed at promoting the implementation of parliamentary reform.

The discussion covered the following issues:

1. Analysis of current practices and international experience in regulating the parliamentary service.
2. The problem of creating a parliamentary service. Principles of reform, foundation of functioning, guarantees of activity.
3. Legislation on parliamentary service: the preferred format:

• a separate law;
• a section of the law on civil service.

Presenting the paper, Tetyana Chernukha, Program Coordinator of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, drew attention to the principles of reforming the parliamentary service, including reinforcement of the institutional autonomy of the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; development of a staffing strategy of the Secretariat; codification of internal parliamentary policies; and drafting of the law “On Regulatory Legal Acts”.

Outlining the functions of the parliamentary service of Ukraine and its role in decision-making, Ms. Chernukha noted that the VRU Secretariat carried out organizational, expert and analytical, financial and technical support of the work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; prepared draft decisions important in planning the work of the VRU (i.e. estimates, plans of legislative work, draft agenda, draft assessment of bills for the main committees, draft opinions of the Scientific and Expert Department and Legal Department, and registration of draft laws).

Ms. Chernukha emphasized that based on the results of the survey of Secretariat employees (anonymous poll of the expert department and committee secretariats), 100% of respondents indicated that their political views did not affect their work in the VRU). However, 40 % of respondents noted that they had witnessed political pressure on their colleagues.

According to Ms. Chernukha, the possible ways of reforming the parliamentary service include designing an effective mechanism that would enable the Main Scientific and Expert Department and the Main Legal Department to suspend inadequate bills; development and introduction of a mechanism of protection against political pressure on employees of the relevant departments; as well as creating an anonymous online platform for employees to complain about political pressure on themselves or their colleagues. Each complaint should be dealt with and investigated.

Having analyzed the current personnel policy of the VRU Secretariat, Ms. Chernukha proposed a number of ways to improve the work of the parliamentary service, including elaboration of clear job descriptions; standardization of the form and establishment of clear-cut requirements for the expert opinions and legal reviews prepared by the Secretariat, the relevant job descriptions must contain references to them; classification of professional positions; appropriate training of the members of the competition commissions; elaboration of test tasks, which should vary depending on the job description and the grade level of the job. The selection of the VRU Secretariat employees and their further work may greatly benefit from the following: arrangement of selection planning so that specific requirements should be checked at each stage of the selection; reducing the scope of subjective assessments of commission members by introducing answer-keys to situational tasks; improving data collection and reporting on human resources in the civil service with a view to effectively supporting HR planning, HR management activities and monitoring can also significantly improve the process of selecting the staff of the Verkhovna Rada staff and their further work.

As of today, 37 % of the polled representatives of the Verkhovna Rada Secretariat state that they do not think that the regulations and procedures of the organization of the work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine are clear and understandable. 52 % of the representatives of the Verkhovna Rada Secretariat emphasize that they do not consider the legislative process in the VRU to be of high quality and effective (at the same time, 48 % consider it to be sufficiently effective).

According to Ms. Chernukha, the measures aimed at improving the legal framework for the work of the VRU Secretariat include consolidation of the legal and regulatory framework for the documents regulating the work of the VRU Secretariat into a single set of internal rules, including those on the implementation of personnel policy (Roadmap on Internal Reform and Capacity-Building for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine); as well as adoption of a law on regulatory legal acts that could facilitate the regulation of the status of regulatory acts, as well as acts adopted by officials of the VRU Secretariat.

The round table was organized within the framework of events aimed to support parliamentary reform by the USAID RADA Program in cooperation with the Agency for Legislative Initiatives.

The discussion focused on the following issues:

• Support documents: types and requirements for drafting.
• Role of support documents in the registration of bills.
• Explanatory note to the bill as a gist of the concept of the bill.
• Financial feasibility study: its role, significance, specific features of preparation.

Ihor Kohut, USAID RADA CoP, made an introductory speech, encouraging all participants of the roundtable to a free exchange of views. Mr. Kohut observed:

Presenting the Policy Paper “Proposals for the Policy Concerning Supporting Documents in the Legislative Process”, Mykhailo Koltsov, expert of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, emphasized that the problem of “legislative spam” affected, first and foremost, MPs themselves and the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The load on the latter is particularly tough since its work is strictly regulated and there are no additional resources to solve the problem by increasing the staff or by amending regulations.

In the current situation, the most suitable of the several possible solutions to the problem is the one involving improvement of the mechanism of drafting supporting documents, in particular, the cover note. At the moment, it is but a formality and has little impact on the process of the procedural passage of the bill or on the evaluation of the document by various groups of stakeholders. Increase in the number of supporting documents due to additional opinion paper does not improve the situation either; it only worsens the load on the system.

But if we change the role of the cover note, formalize its structure, and introduce checklists in the practice of the Secretariat’s work, it can both improve the situation with a large number of bills and optimize the work of the departments.

The cover note is not intended for lawyers. It is intended for the stakeholders – MPs, civic leaders, and experts – who are not lawyers, and who need an explanation of the practical consequences of enactment of a law.

The main changes in the structure of the cover note stem from its role as a document aimed to clarify the goals and objectives of the draft law. It is supposed to contain: the explanation of its connection with the current policy, estimation of the number of resources required to implement the policy envisaged by the draft law, expected effects of the implementation and assessment of compliance with the provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine, current regulations and international agreements. To implement this suggestion, it is only necessary to make changes to the methodological recommendations for the legislative mechanism in order to spell out the role and structure of the explanatory note. The oversight of compliance with these requirements can be performed via checklists since they make it possible to check documents based on a single structure and can be applied by employees with different levels of qualification.

It is expected that by focusing on the structure and new requirements when preparing the cover note legislative initiative entities will be able to clarify the problems the bill is supposed to resolve, the ways of tackling them, and the consequences of its enforcement. Consequently, the content of the cover note may be the subject of discussion both during the first and second readings, as well as in communication with various groups of stakeholders. This, without a doubt, will help increase confidence in both the legislative process and laws themselves.

On November 15, 2017, the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center hosted a presentation the policy paper on “Proposals Concerning Policy on Conflict of Interests of MPs of Ukraine”.

The event was organized by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives within the framework of the USAID RADA Program: Responsible, Accountable, Democratic Assembly implemented by the East Europe Foundation.

Speakers:

• Svitlana Matviyenko, Chairwoman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives;
• Serhiy Leshchenko, MP of Ukraine, Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Cooperation and Implementation of the Anti-Corruption Legislation of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on the Corruption Prevention and Counteraction;
• Ulyana Poltavets, Program Director of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives;
• Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, Executive Director of Transparency International Ukraine;
• Oleksandr Lemenov, Senior Expert, RPR Anticorruption Group.

The document focuses on the phenomenon of conflict of interest in the Ukrainian parliament and suggests possible ways to manage conflicts of interest and develop relevant policies. Based on the conducted analysis, it was found that 9% of MPs display signs indicative of a conflict of interest. However, due to the incoherence of legislation, lack of a comprehensible policy concerning conflicts of interest, insufficiency of penalties and inertia of controlling bodies, neither existing conflicts can be resolved, nor new ones can be prevented. The nature of the parliamentary representative function implies the existence of certain conflicts of interest, therefore it is extremely important to prevent conflicts of interest and to ensure the inevitability of punishment for violating the existing rules and conflicts of interest measures through the use of a coherent conflict-of-interest policy.

Ms. Matviienko emphasized that this study was done as a Policy Paper, a standard format for documents prepared within the framework of the RADA Program. The paper offers proposals concerning policies, that is, it suggests specific solutions as to preventing MPs’ conflicts of interests based on the current legislation and proposals for the future in the field of regulation of parliamentary activity as such.

Mr. Leshchenko claims that he has become used to hearing MPs in the session hall blatantly discussing the most effective ways to attract budget funds to the area of their interests. Mr. Leshchenko believes that a Code of Conduct can help avoid corruption problems that keep arising. MPs who are involved in business cannot make decisions in the relevant area.

Mr. Leshchenko argues that this study shows how acute the problem is and how it is settled in different countries of the world. He hopes that after the adoption of the Code of Conduct the Ukrainian parliament will have fewer conflicts of interest. It is better to prevent them than to spend money to fight their consequences. The present study will contribute to the elimination of conflicts of interest.

Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, Executive Director of Transparency International Ukraine, emphasized the importance of the study that draws attention to the permanent violations of conflict-of-interest principles, focusing on the precedence of private interests over public ones in the actions of some politicians. Mr. Yurchyshyn argues that Ukraine is gradually moving towards solving the conflict-of-interests issue. The importance of this problem lies in the fact that combating the effects of corruption is rather complicated since corruption schemes remain in place, they can easily be resuscitated and re-channeled. It is more effective to prevent such situations by setting rules that inhibit corruption. Also, Mr. Yurchyshyn emphasized that in the realities of Ukraine the Code of Conduct would only be effective if major penalties were imposed for violations.

According to Oleksandr Lemenov, Senior Expert, RPR Anticorruption Group, despite the anti-corruption regulations integrated into Ukrainian legislation since 2014, neither the specialized anti-corruption institutions nor MPs can settle this problem in their activity. Mr. Lemenov drew attention to the fact that very often senior officials did not even understand the very essence of the principle of conflict of interest. That is why it is extremely important that MPs should study the paper in detail.