Lecturer: Oksana Syroid, Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

More than 40 participants took part in the event: students of Kyiv universities (National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University, National Pedagogical Dragomanov University), graduates of the Verkhovna Rada Internship Program, MPs’ aids, and representatives of NGOs.

Tetiana BIBIK, Deputy Director of the USAID RADA Program: Responsible Accountable Democratic Assembly, outlined the opportunities provided by the RADA Youth Program, focusing on the tools and mechanisms of the Program that promote parliamentary reform, such as the service of electronic petitions, the portal for public discussion of draft laws, the internship program in the Verkhovna Rada as well as educational components for youth.

Why do people unite in states?

The state emerges as a social contract between people in order to protect three fundamental rights: life, liberty, and property. In natural circumstances that precede the state, a person cannot individually enforce these rights.

Why do people need government authorities?

People can protect their fundamental rights only by imposing penalties for their encroachment. For example, the protection of the right to life is ensured through the delegation of representatives to the relevant bodies that, on behalf of the people and in the interests of the entire society, establish what a crime is and how it should be punished. Courts must ensure that the fundamental rights and rights derived from them be protected in accordance with laws adopted on behalf of the people.

When we create a state and delegate our rights to it, we must maintain it. To ensure protection of our rights, we allocate resources and create a government.

The function of the government is to collect and redistribute people’s money. Governments have no function other than that. They have to redistribute the funds in such a way as to perform the functions of the state and ensure fulfillment of what people agreed upon. The government is closed by its nature; under such conditions, it is very convenient to spend money.

Therefore, an extremely important function of the parliament is to control how the government collects and distributes money.

When does the parliamentary control over the government emerge?

The prime minister reads a report in parliament: Can we view it as a kind of control over the government? Perhaps we cannot. Both the current and the previous Prime Minister actually believe that just by coming to the Parliament and telling something from the rostrum, they report on their work.

The Ukrainian Parliament does not fulfill its control function and cannot fulfill it because it does not know what the government spends money on.

A vivid example of the government’s non-transparency is the vote on the state budget. The lack of a detailed budget, various inherent preferences, and non-transparency give rise to the phenomenon of the budget night when MPs vote for the state budget at night because they do not trust each other. Since everything is non-transparent and described in “broad-brush terms”, MPs sit at the table and agree on the allocation of funds. If they go to sleep, overnight, all arrangements may be reshuffled and in the morning everyone can come up with new wishes. That is why they vote for the budget “hot on the trail”.

This will continue until there is a detailed and very specific budget.

How do people in power make money?

The people who were in power in the first years of independence created a number of preferences for themselves:
– privatization and management of state-owned enterprises;
– non-transparent extraction of natural resources;
– non-transparent government contracts (budget).

These are the origins of the oligarchic economy of the 1990s.

Corrupt schemes will continue to function until people start to control their money themselves. The first step to this objective is local self-government that teaches people to manage their money and resources.

The next step should be personal tax payment. People seem to believe that the state gives them money without realizing that in reality it is they who maintain the state.

Taxes are a tool that guarantees the state unity and the quality of state institutions. The only mechanism for ensuring the payment of taxes is the inevitability of punishment for a failure to pay them.

The state will cease to exist if people stop paying taxes and controlling how their money is spent.

The quality of the Constitution and the quality of laws

The statement that we have one of the best constitutions in the world is a myth.

From laws people expect information on how they should regulate their behavior and predict consequences for themselves and others in case of non-compliance. If a law meets these requirements, it is of high-quality.

People suffer because of the state. Laws are written to protect people from violations by the authorities and to curb the state’s tyranny.

Laws have to protect human rights and must contain information about the responsible authority that should protect these rights and specify the ways to do this. A law is bad if it does not contain these elements.

Laws are voted in violation of the procedure; laws are not discussed beforehand. The process of voting laws as a whole has many defects; laws adopted based on this principle always contain a lot of mistakes. The main research and expert administration might be politically biased and dependent.

Key tips for young people: 

• always look for the nature of things;
• always ask “Why?”
• never take anything at face value;
• study philosophy, think.

The event was organized by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives together with the Internews Ukraine and the Interns’ League, supported by the USAID Rada Program: Responsible Accountable Democratic Assembly, implemented by the East Europe Foundation.

This paper studies the concept of conflict of interest (COI) in the Verkhovna Rada, as well as proposes the possible ways to manage it and to introduce a policy thereon. The analysis has revealed that 9% of Ukrainian MPs may have a conflict of interest, but the dispersed legislation, lack of a coherent COI policy, insufficient sanctions, and the inert oversight bodies make it impossible not only to resolve the existing conflicts, but also to prevent the potential ones. The nature of the parliamentary representative function implies existence of certain conflicts of interest, therefore it is extremely important to avert them and to ensure the inevitability of punishment for violation of the existing norms and measures through the use of a comprehensive policy.

In her interview with Olha Snitsarchuk on Channel 5, Svitlana Matviienko, Chairwoman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, analyzed the annual address of the President of Ukraine to the Verkhovna Rada, focusing on the issues of lifting MPs’ immunity, CEC problems, the war, and the Minsk agreements.

Apart from that, Svitlana presented the analytical report “Code of Ethics: Structure, Content, and Subject Matter. Realities and Proposals for Codification”, which generalizes discussions concerning the idea of creating a code of ethics for Ukrainian parliamentarians, as well as the codification of all current rules governing MPs’ behavior.

On September 7, 2017, the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center hosted a presentation of the analytical report “Code of Ethics for Parliamentarians: Structure, Content, Topics. Realities and Suggestions Concerning Codification”, which was attended by:

• Svitlana Matviyenko, Chairwoman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives;
• Ihor Kohut, Director of the USAID RADA Program;
• Olena Sotnyk, MP of Ukraine;
• Ostap Yednak, MP of Ukraine;
• Serhiy Leshchenko, MP of Ukraine.

This report was drawn up within the framework of the project of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives “Support to Democratic Political Culture in the Verkhovna Rada Political Dialogue and Ethical Standards”. The report aims to summarize the discussions of MPs of Ukraine, international experts, OSCE ODIHR experts and other stakeholders on the basis of the dialogue platform that ensures an inclusive process of the elaboration of a Code of Parliamentary Ethics coming from parliamentarians themselves. In addition, the document proposes a codification of the existing legislation in the areas covered by the Code.

Discussions based on the dialogue platform will make up the basis for the future Code of Ethics for Parliamentarians and are subject to broad discussion.

The activities are carried out within the framework of the project of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives “Support for Democratic Political Culture in Parliament via Political Dialogue and Ethical Standards” implemented with the support of MATRA Program (Netherlands Embassy) and in partnership with the OSCE ODIHR Project “Strengthening Dialogue Among Civil Society and With Key Government Stakeholders in Ukraine on Human Dimension Issues”, the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy, and USAID RADA Program: Responsible Accountable Democratic Assembly implemented by East Europe Foundation.

Photos: Ukraine crisis media center

This report has been prepared under the Agency for Legislative Initiatives Project “Support of the Democratic Political Culture in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine via Political Dialogue and Ethical Standards” backed by the Matra Programme (the Netherlands Embassy) in partnership with the OSCE/ODIHR “Strengthening Dialogue among Civil Society and with Key Government Stakeholders in Ukraine on Human Dimension Issues” Project, the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), and with the assistance of the USAID “RADA: Responsibility, Accountability, Democratic Parliamentary Representation”.

The Agency for Legislative Initiatives (ALI) project aims at improving the quality of the parliamentary process through the support of the interparty dialogue and promotion of ethical standards in the parliament, which includes:

• Establishment of the multiparty dialogue platform to discuss ethical dilemmas;
• Support of the World Café format discussions with participation of the OSCE/ODIHR and NIMD leading experts to facilitate the dialogue;
• Promotion of an inclusive process to develop the Parliamentary Code of Conduct or any other regulation mechanism that would be owned by the members of parliament;
• Conduct of interactive training sessions on the parliamentary ethics and political parties, as well as consultations with the stakeholders and the public;
• Preparation of analytical reports upon the discussions to form the basis for the Parliamentary Code of Conduct.

The project shall help to improve the culture of the political communication, to strengthen the interparty cooperation, to move closer to the international standards as suggested by the Cox Mission recommendations, and to restore trust in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

This document summarises the discussions held among the Ukrainian MPs, international and OSCE/ODIHR experts, as well as other stakeholders on the basis of the dialogue platform. In addition, proposals are made to codify the existing legislation in the areas related to the Code of Conduct.

The reports based on the dialogue platform discussions should form the basis for the Parliamentary Code of Conduct and should become subject to the broader debate.

During 2015 – 2016 the Agency for Legislative Initiatives supported the advocacy campaigns of the Reanimation Package of Reforms groups, in particular: “Pension Reform”, “Tax Reform”, “Health Care Reform”, and “Policy of National Memory”.

To support the campaigns a number of trainings and consultations on policy analysis were conducted and assistance in establishing communication with the parliament was provided through such tools as preparation and presentation of shadow reports and policy proposals, as well as discussing advocacy groups initiatives in the regions.
The guidelines aim to systematize and present existing experience in planning and holding advocacy campaigns. The proposed publication contains step-by-step instructions and strategies for civil society institutes on how to build effective communication with public authorities.

The guidelines aim to strengthen the civil society organizations’ skills in planning and implementing advocacy campaigns. To achieve this goal the guidelines explain what advocacy is and how it differs from lobbying; consider advocacy support for public policy implementation; teach the techniques of building coalitions and interaction with partners in advocacy campaigns; explore the main strategies of advocacy campaigns informational support, work with media and social networks, community and organization of protests of direct action; study the aspects of parliamentary advocacy and examples of successful parliamentary advocacy campaigns.

On May 26–27, 2017 in Kyiv The Seventh International Academic Conference “Parliamentary Readings” took place.

The Conference is a part of a project implemented by the NGO Agency of Legislative Initiatives with the support of USAID RADA Program: Responsible Accountable Democratic Assembly, implemented by East Europe Foundation.

The conference is intended to form a higher level of expert and academic discourse in Ukraine and attract young researchers and academics to conduct research on the evolution of the formation and trends of the development of parliamentarianism in Ukraine, qualitative and quantitative methods of studying internal parliamentary processes, and the methodology of studying the behaviour of parliamentarians.

Conference topics:
• The evolution of the formation and tendencies of development of parliamentarianism in Ukraine;
• Qualitative and quantitative methods of studying internal parliamentary processes;
• Methodology for studying the behaviour of parliamentarians;
• Coalition government;
• Cooperation between government and parliament.

The first day of the VII International Academic Conference “Parliamentary Readings”, which was filled with informative presentations and discussions, showed the participants and the guests the importance of social media enhancing parliamentary democracy. International experience of building an effective and transparent parliament was also presented during the first working day. Speakers showed how an effective and transparent parliament could be built in Ukraine. They also introduced Ukrainian and worldwide practices of the internal parliamentary processes research. First day of the conference ended with the interesting and comprehensive presentation and discussion of the studies.

Second day of the Conference was devoted to the presentation and discussion of the research papers. It was focused on the evaluation of the problem of cooperation between parliament and government of Ukraine; legal regulation of parliamentary immunity; the problem of sticking to the election programs by political parties; the influence of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine on activity of parliament; comparative analysis of parliamentary systems in Germany, Austrian Republic and Switzerland; psychology of parliamentary lobbying; code of conduct for MPs; possibility of e-government effective functioning.

Agenda of The Conference

Media gallery here

“MPs do not fully realize what they should do in Parliament”, said Svitlana Matviienko, Chairwoman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, in conversation with Olha Aivazovska and Andriy Saychuk on the program “Reform. Parliament” on hromadske.ua.

Discussing the issue of elaboration of a Code of MPs’ Ethics, Svitlana spoke about international experience of drafting such codes as well as focused on issues of lobbying, conflict of interests, and the need to regulate the work of MPs as a professional activity.

MPs’ ethics is not an issue of parliamentary behavior, parliamentary vocabulary, or the argument of “throwing your sword”. This issue is much wider. MPs tend to think that most issues of parliamentary ethics should be solved with the help of anti-corruption legislation. But there are questions of unregulated lobbying; conflict of interest; very important questions of what MPs engage in after they cease to be deputies, how they are recruited and how they use all the privileges granted to them.

The issue of the Code of MPs’ Ethics in Ukraine is rather old. Yulia Tyshchenko, in cooperation with UCIPR, did a very important work, i.e. they considered this issue from voters’ perspective rather than from MPs’, having arranged focus groups across Ukraine to ask voters whether they think this code to be necessary. The results turned out to be rather unexpected because people consider it extremely significant and believe that it should regulate not only MPs’ behavior in the session hall but also outside Parliament. One can observe a certain imbalance; MPs’ understanding of ethics is at a lower level than the awareness among ordinary citizens.

It is important to raise the awareness of MPs because they are people with different levels of education and different professional backgrounds; there are those who were elected for the first time, and we had to work with all of them. Therefore, we started this work. This convocation of the Verkhovna Rada is interesting because it is in this convocation that the name of the committee responsible for ethical questions was reduced to just the Committee on Rules, without the word ‘ethics’ in it. In addition, it does not even have a chairperson to this day, only an acting chairman.

In different countries, issues of parliamentary ethics are regulated differently, and each country chooses its own format. In Britain, it is the Nolan principles; in Sweden, there is a list of laws united in one module; the European Parliament has a big code, which, by the way, does not contain any sanction section. The experience of Estonia, which we have used from the very beginning, demonstrates that it is sometimes possible to adopt a code without sanctions, and then add a sanction section.

Many international and Ukrainian experts can write a good document, but it will be useless. That is why we work with the deputy corps. It is necessary that each faction should have representatives working on the ethical code, who are constantly immersed in the process. For if different factions and groups are not in agreement on the decision, it will be pointless and will not be legitimate, and nobody will follow it. The Code of Parliamentary Ethics can exist in various forms, and it does not matter whether it will be adopted by a Law of Ukraine, by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, or will become part of the MP’s oath.

Currently, the activities of MPs are regulated by the Constitution of Ukraine, the Law on the Status of People’s Deputies, and the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. However, very often the regulatory provisions of these documents are simply ignored. For example, when somebody is fighting in the hall, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine should stop the meeting. Very often we see that it does not happen, as in the case of Serhiy Leshchenko’s torn jacket or when foul language is heard in the hall.

On November 18-19, 2016, the Sixth International Conference ‘Parliamentary Readings’ was held at the House of Official Receptions (Kyiv, 22, Hrushevskyi Str.).

The conference was organized by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives in partnership with the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Social Sciences and Social Technologies of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy as well as the Department of Parliamentarism and Political Management of the National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine.

A  collection of selected works of its participants was prepared based on the results of the conference.

The conference is part of the project implemented by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives with the support of USAID RADA Program: Responsible, Accountable, Democratic Assembly implemented by the East Europe Foundation.

“MPs are looking for excuses to avoid work”, said Svitlana Matviienko, Chairwoman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, on Channel 5 talking about the professional standards of MPs, parliament reform mission led by Pat Cox, failure to vote on the Accounting Chamber, inter-party dialogue, and prospects for early parliamentary elections.