On June 1, 2016, the Agency for Legislative Initiatives held a roundtable on “Institutionalization of the Coalition and Opposition in the Parliament of Ukraine”.

The event was organized in cooperation with the 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.

Participants of the roundtable discussed legislative initiatives concerning amendments to the Rules of the Verkhovna Rada (No. 1066, 1066-1, 3061, 3061-1, 4331, 4331-1) in order to set standards for the status of the coalition and opposition in Ukraine. The event was aimed at developing a consolidated position on the legislative regulation of the status and procedure of the coalition and opposition in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Pavlo Pynzenyk, First Deputy of the Committee on Rules of Parliamentary Procedure and Support to Work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, emphasized the fundamental importance of settling the status of the parliamentary majority and, accordingly, of the minority in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine:

Ihor Kohut, CoP of the USAID RADA Program: Responsible Accountable Democratic Assembly, assured of a readiness for comprehensive support in order to establish a political dialogue:

Yurii Miroshnychenko, co-author of bill No. 1066, briefly outlined the main ideas of the legislative initiative:

Mykhailo Papiyev, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Deputy Ethics, for his part, assured of a readiness for thorough work on the institutionalization of the coalition and opposition in the parliament:

Valeriy Pysarenko, co-author of bills No. 1066-1, No. 3061-1, spoke about political will as an indispensable prerequisite for prompt settling of the status of coalition and opposition in the Ukrainian parliament:

Borys Bespalyi, USAID RADA expert, spoke about restraints regarding the list of rights of the parliamentary opposition, for “Opposition factions have the same rights as coalition ones (the right to be represented in parliamentary permanent and interim bodies, mandatory inclusion of bills from the opposition on the agenda, etc.).” From this point of view, it is complicated to set some priorities for the opposition in purely legislative activity:

The Agency for Legislative Initiatives with the support of the USAID RADA Program presented the first issue of Chasopys Parlament for 2016 to MPs, which was offered for everyone in their workplace thanks to the MPs Yaroslav Markevych and Oleksiy Mushak.

The materials were prepared by the European Information and Research Center, headed by Roman Kobets.

Other MPs supported the flash-mob in the Verkhovna Rada, such as Viktoria Ptashnyk, Vladyslav Holub, Natalia Veselova, Oksana Yurynets, Pavlo Kyshkar, Yuriy Makedon, Andriy Vadaturskyi, Serhiy Leshchenko and Svitlana Zalishchuk.

On May 19, 2016, (2 p.m. – 4 p.m.), within the framework of the Day of Europe in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Agency for Legislative Initiatives held a presentation of the study “Expert Analytical Support of the Legislative Process in the European Union”, involving discussion of the annual report of the European Information and Research Center at the VRU. The event took place in the assembly hall (room No. 12), at the address 18/2 Hrushevskyi St.

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

Andriy Parubii, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, welcomed the participants in his opening speech and highlighted the Center’s potential to improve the quality of draft laws submitted to the parliament:

Ihor Kohut, CoP of the USAID RADA Program, said:

MP Olena Sotnyk, the most active user of the European Information and Research Center, spoke about the benefits of the analytical support provided by the Center in work on draft laws:

Arkadii Nyzhnyk, Deputy Head of the Main Legal Department of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, is also convinced of the urgent need to improve the quality of bills currently submitted for consideration in the session hall.

Volodymyr Bondarenko, Deputy Head of the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Head of the Central Organization Office.

MP Oksana Yurynets stressed the importance of getting acquainted with the experience of implementation and consequences of certain policies or reforms in European and other countries, because this information will help to predict the possible consequences of such policies for Ukraine:

Tymur Tashtanov, Local Coordinator for the European Parliament’s Capacity Building Program for the Verkhovna Rada, focused on the feasibility of introduction of White Papers as an instrument for establishing communication between the Government and Parliament of Ukraine:

On May 12, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Human Rights, National Minorities and Interethnic Relations, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance and the Agency for Legislative Initiative held a joint expert roundtable on “Improving the Legislation on Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions. Problems and Prospects”.

The event was organized within the framework of the USAID RADA Program: Responsible Accountable Democratic Assembly in partnership with the RPR National Remembrance Policy Group and the Center for the Study of the Liberation Movement.

Valeriy Paktsan, First Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Human Rights, National Minorities and Interethnic Relations, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Relations with Ukrainians Living Abroad, highlighted the relevance of the topic of restoring the rights of political repressions victims and improving the current regulatory framework.

Igor Kohut, CoP of the USAID RADA Program, focused on the entire process of advocacy of this legislative initiative by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives under the USAID RADA Program: Responsible Accountable Democratic Assembly

Photo credit: Mykola Myrnyi, Information Center for Human Rights

The Chairperson of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives believes that before the first personnel decisions are announced, there is no reason to say that one of the candidates for the post of prime minister is better.

When people need to make a choice between their own purses and democracy, it is difficult to persuade them to “tighten the belts” for the sake of reforms according to Svitlana Matviienko, Chairwoman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives.

The Analytical Center of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives was created 16 years ago at the initiative of graduates of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. It focuses on democratic transformations and political and legal issues of parliamentarism, as well as functioning of political institutions and electoral processes; its experts are directly involved in the parliamentary legislative process.

In an interview for NV, Svitlana Matviienko, Chairwoman of the Board of the Agency, supported by the Council of Europe in Ukraine, talks about the lack of trust between politicians and in politicians as the main cause of the parliamentary crisis and explains why early election is inevitable and disastrous.

On May 27, the draft Law “On the Election of Members of Parliament of Ukraine” was posted on the website of the Ministry of Justice . It was prepared having regard to the results of meetings of the Working Group on Improvement of Election Legislation established in November of last year by the President of Ukraine. The revised draft law was based on the “technical” draft of the same Law which had been made public by the Justice Ministry in April 2011. The ministry says that the updated document takes account of many of the proposals voiced during the meetings with representatives of political parties, nongovernmental and international organizations. In reality, however, there are just a few provisions of this sort.

The updated draft law really does contain a number of positive changes. They reflect to a considerable extent proposals voiced by participants in the meetings of the Working Group on Improvement of Election Legislation. These changes include the more precise definition of the procedure for registering observers from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the affording of the opportunity for NGO observers to be present at the meetings of the CEC. In particular, according to the revised draft law, the decision to allow an NGO to have observers lies with the Central Election Commission (rather than with the district election commissions, as was provided by the “technical” version of the draft). Furthermore, eligibility requirements regarding nongovernmental organizations are specified: the right to have observers will be granted only to those NGOs whose statutory activities embrace issues related to the election process and to the observation thereof. Just like the “technical” draft law, the revised draft of the Law “On the Election of Members of Parliament of Ukraine” provides theses official observers with the same rights as the ones enjoyed by the official observers of parties or of MP candidates. All these innovations promote effective public observation of the election campaign. Still, it should be noted that the updated document affords the right to observe the election to organizations registered not later than 60 days prior to the voting day. This may result in the emergence, shortly before the election, of lots of NGOs, which will discredit public observation and will be used by parties or individual candidates as a political technology instrument.

The “technical” draft law essentially restricted citizens’ access to socially significant information about the election process subjects, since it did not provide for the necessity to make public the candidates’ bios, their income statements, the election programs of the candidates and the parties, or the financial reports on the receipt and use of the resources of the election funds. Due to the efforts of the NGO representatives taking part in the meetings of the Working Group, a part of these defects were eliminated: the information being provided by the parties and the candidates at the point of their registration is to be considered as open-access information; and parties’ election programs, financial reports by parties and candidates, and candidates’ income statements are to be posted on the CEC website. However, one of the defects of the previous draft law version has been preserved: the majoritarian candidates are not required to have any election programs of their own. Accordingly, they will be free to promise anything to the voters, while there will be no real opportunity to verify the keeping of these promises.

The list of grounds for canceling MP candidates’ registration has been considerably narrowed; on the whole, this is in line with the international democratic election standards.

One of the pluses of the updated draft law consists in resuming the use of the stamp “Withdrawn” for amending ballot papers (the “technical” draft law did not provide for the use thereof). In line with the Working Group members’ proposals, it is specified that these stamps are to be kept at the district election commissions, not at the precinct ones. This will prevent their unlawful use. Other favorable points of the draft law include the more precise definition of the vote-counting procedure at the precincts and the expansion of the requirements regarding the vote-counting protocol – in it, the number of ballot papers in each ballot box is to be indicated. Pursuant to OSCE recommendations, the “against all” option was removed from the text of the ballot paper; this will make the voters more responsible for their choice and will also reduce the number of votes received by the campaign winning parties due to “reassigned” ballot papers in which voters did not support any particular party of candidate.

The authors of the draft law at last provided for mandatory training of the leaders of the district election commissions. This innovation will promote better performance of the commissions in question. However, it might also lead to negative consequences for the opposition parties – the procedure for such “election training” is to be determined by the CEC rather than directly by the law. As a result, the leadership of the election commissions may come to be dominated by representatives of certain parties only who successfully complete their training. Moreover, the precinct commission leaders – the persons experiencing the highest workload – will not be required to receive any training.

To ensure that voters are provided with objective information, a requirement is established that in the event of publication of the results of an opinion survey by mass media, information on the originator of the survey must be indicated. The revised draft law also takes account of the pan-European approaches to  regulating issues related to “election sociology” – the deadline for the publication of the opinion poll results has been shortened from 15 to 10 days prior to the voting day.

The “technical” draft law text provided for the resolution of all election disputes exclusively in court, thus weakening opportunities for defending the violated electoral rights of citizens, parties, candidates, etc. Indeed, during the brief election process period the courts would by no means always be able to provide for prompt and – above all – high-quality resolution of election disputes. In the revised draft law, this defect was eliminated: election law violations can be appealed not only to courts, but to election commissions as well. However, blameworthy is the fact that the deadline for submitting the relevant complaints has been reduced from 5 to 2 days.

At the same time, the revised draft of the Law “On the Election of Members of Parliament of Ukraine” contains a number of serious conceptual defects and provisions which fail to fully take into account the democratic standards of fair and transparent elections. The role of public consultations during the preparation of the draft law was greatly narrowed, because the most important problems of the election legislation (in particular election system related issues) were resolved by the president in a single-handed manner, without being discussed with the public or with the parties’ representatives. Thus, one can hardly say that the revised draft law version is the product of the Working Group’s activities and of public consultations.

In the first place, attention should be focused here on the restoration of the mixed proportional-majoritarian electoral system. The current authorities attribute the return to the electoral system which was already used back in 1998 and 2002 to the wish to strengthen the relationship between the MPs and the voters, as that connection was considerably weakened under the proportional electoral system. However, in the context of relationship between the elected representatives and the public, it would be more logical and effective to introduce a proportional system with preferred voting (so-called “proportional system with open lists”). More than that, such an election mechanism would facilitate further development of the party system in Ukraine, which was in fact the main objective for introducing proportional election back in 2004. Restoration of the old electoral model automatically brings back all of its defects, the most essential ones being political corruption and stronger influence of the administrative resource on the final election outcome.

Nor can one approve of the raising of the entrance barrier to the Parliament of Ukraine (from 3 % to 5 %) or of the ban on participation of electoral blocs in the election. Both of these initiatives are exclusively in favor of the current authorities and the dominant political force. Moreover, the higher entrance barrier to the parliament will promote neither a renewal of the political elite nor a representation of the interests of small groups of voters. As to the ban on electoral blocs it should logically be accompanied by amendments to the Law “On Political Parties in Ukraine” which would provide for unification of parties. Also of questionable merit is the reduction of the election campaign period from 120 to 90 days – this will considerably complicate the organization and holding of the election.

The proposed version of the parliamentary election law breaches the principle of equal franchise: voters residing outside the territory of Ukraine are to be included in the voter lists of one single-mandate election district, although their number outside Ukraine is several times higher than the number of voters even in the largest district established within the territory of the country. Therefore, the votes of Ukrainians exercising their voting right beyond the borders of the country will actually have less weight than the votes of citizens casting ballots in their motherland.

There are also defects in the context of the maximum number of voters in a precinct. Presently in Ukraine, it is planned to keep it at 2,750 voters; this will neither facilitate proper organization of the voting nor comply with the recommendations of the Venice Commission or of the international election observation missions, which recommended decreasing the number of voters in a precinct to 1,500. The revised draft law provides for introducing a division of the election precincts into regular and temporary ones, while failing to specify the procedure for establishing and disestablishing regular precincts, for revising their limits, etc.

A serious problem is the violation of the principle of equality of parties in the formation of the election commissions, since in this aspect, preferences are provided for parliamentary factions registered at the beginning of the election process. As a consequence, the Party of the Regions and the Communist Party will be guaranteed (as parties having independent factions in the Parliament of Ukraine) representation in each district and precinct commission. At the same time, for example, the faction “Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense” (made up by 9 parties) will only have one representative in an election commission, which automatically implies discrimination against the political forces represented in the faction, compared to the “regionals” or the communists.

The cancellation of the possibility for the parties to withdraw their representatives from the election commissions also creates problems for political forces participating in the election, since under such conditions competitors can simply “buy over” some or other member of an election commission.

The draft provides for the possibility of amending voter lists on the voting day; this is at odds with the international standards (in particular with the Venice Commission’s Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters) and creates serious opportunities for abuse.

Although the draft Law “On the Election of Members of Parliament” provides for mandatory publication of the reports on the receipt and use of the resources of the election funds, no requirements regarding the design and content of such reports are established. Besides, there is still inconsistency regarding election campaign funding. Thus, it is formally forbidden to form election funds on the basis of contributions from legal entities, but the Law of Ukraine “On Political Parties in Ukraine” provides that parties can be financed by legal entities. Accordingly, political forces will be able to transfer money from legal entities to their election funds claiming that these funds are self-contributions – and the amounts thereof will not be subject to any limitations (contrary to contributions from natural persons).

The grounds for refusing to register candidates are unclearly defined by the draft law, which creates an environment conducive to all sorts of abuse, in particular non-admission of certain candidates to participation in the election. For example a candidate can be refused registration if he/she violates the requirements of the legislation during the nomination, or if documents submitted for his/her registration are “improperly” prepared.

The draft law section relating to regulation of the election campaign preserves a number of undemocratic restrictions which have been repeatedly pointed out by international election observation missions. Among them is the prohibition on expressing comments on or assessments of campaign programs within 20 minutes before and after their presentation on TV or radio, as well as the prohibition of campaigning in mass media partially owned by foreigners. Preserving quotas for political advertising will not be conducive to ensuring candidates’ equality, while canceling election campaign funding from the State Budget will disadvantage some parties (especially those lacking sufficient financial resources) compared to other electoral process subjects.

Also worthy of mention is the absence of appropriate mechanisms for informing voters: at the precincts, only lists of candidates (respectively, parties in the nationwide district and “majoritarians” in single-mandate districts) will be posted, without their election programs, photographs, etc. All of this will make it harder to make an informed choice on election day.

As in the past, there will be the threat of fraud related to “voting at home” – the designers of the draft law failed to take into account the recommendations voiced by some members of the Working Group that the law should make it mandatory for voters to submit documents confirming their temporary inability to move without outside assistance.

The revised draft law does not provide for amendments to the Code of Administrative Proceedings (CAP) as regards the procedure for appealing election-related decisions, actions, or inaction to a court. In essence, this implies conservation of the defects resulting from the amendments introduced into the CAP before the 2010 presidential election, in particular the impossibility to appeal certain court decisions to an appellate court. Nor is there a provision requiring that the Criminal Code be amended, even though most of its articles concerning liability for violation of citizens’ electoral rights were criticized by domestic experts, the Venice Commission, and the OSCE.

It is planned that the updated draft Law “On the Election of Members of Parliament” will be presented to the Venice Commission and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and be brought up for wide public discussion. Although such a step is in itself praiseworthy, the process of preparation and adoption of the new election law can be assessed as democratic only if the draft law is amended in line with the results of the relevant public discussion. Moreover, the authorities must clearly and convincingly explain the reasons and motives for failing to take account of certain proposals (including those related to the conceptual provisions of the draft law, such as electoral system type, election barrier level, etc), as is common in many European countries. Without this, public consultations regarding the draft law will turn into an imitation of democratic procedure, which can hardly provide for the legitimacy of the adopted law or evoke respect for it on the part of political actors and society in general.

Denys Kovryzhenko,
Director for Legal programs, Agency for Legislative Initiatives.
Prepared on behalf of the Civic Consortium on Election initiatives.

Although the Europeanisation studies have recently substantially broadened the ‘geography’ of their analysis, little attention so far has been paid to the Eastern neighbours of the European Union, in particular Ukraine. This Report attempts to fill the gap, by considering the Europeanisation of the Ukrainian parliament. It focuses on three dimensions: (і) development of the parliamentary procedures and practices under the influence of the European parliamentary traditions; (ii) institutional and procedural transformations of the legislative process due to the adaptation of Ukraine’s legislation to the acquis communautaire, and (ііi) Europeanisation of the policy-making process, in particular, the role of the “European argument” in the law-making.

For the EU readers, the Ukrainian experience, presented by this Report, restores the initial stages of European integration with their impact on the functioning of the legislative and executive branches of power, demonstrating formation of the grounds for the inertness of the national parliaments in EU-related matters. For the Ukrainian audience, this study accesses the scale on which ‘the European factor’ influences the parliamentary activities, the legislative process and the modelling of domestic reforms, while comparison with other EU countries presents a possibility for a timely understanding of the need for the development of the institutional capacity of the Parliament of Ukraine in the issues dealing with European integration, in particular concerning the adaptation of Ukraine’s legislation to the acquis communautaire. Being critical regarding the current state of play, this Report suggests a set of parliamentary reforms, arguing that the need for development is nowadays particularly appealing in the context of negotiations regarding the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, where the adaptation of Ukraine’s legislation to EU law is one of the key priorities.

This publication has become possible due to the support provided by the European Programme of the International Renaissance Foundation (IRF, Ukraine) and the cooperation between theAgency for Legislative Initiatives (ALI, Ukraine), the Centre for European Reforms (CER, UK) and the Foundation for International Relations and External Dialogue (FRIDE, Spain). The Agency for Legislative Initiatives expresses its gratitude for the contribution of its partner think-tanks, in particular  Tomas Valasek (CER) and Natalya Shapovalova (FRIDE), as well as all European and Ukrainian experts who have expressed their comments regarding the study. We are also sincerely grateful to the project team, namely:Kateryna Sidash (project coordinator), Oleksandr Zaslavskyi (research assistance), Bogdan Polishchuk (research assistance), Luydmyla Scherbanyuk (translation), Gilllian Rathbone (editing, English version).

Authors of the research «WHY ‘EUROPE’ MATTERS»: Anzhela Yevgenyeva (co-author and general editor), DPhil Candidate in Law, Tutor in EU law, University of Oxford; Denis Kovryzhenko (co-author), Legal Research Director, Agency for Legislative Initiatives.

The presentation was opened by Ihor Kohut, Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, who briefly described the main priorities pursued by the Agency, and reported on the public discussions arranged in various regions of Ukraine for the purpose of the study.

Marcin Walecki, Chief of OSCE/ODIHR Democratic Governance Unit, noted that the presented report was the most complete and fundamental profile study, which would remain valid for the years to come. Mr Walecki commended the report for the interesting and simple presentation of information.

The introductory words were followed by the presentation of the main opinions and ideas of the report by Denys Kovryzhenko, Legal Programmes Director of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives.

The presentation was completed with the discussion of the presented analytical overview.

* * *

The National Report “Regulation of Political Parties: Current State and Direction of Reforms” has resulted from the discussions of the key issues in the regulation of the functioning of political parties, including those related to the participation of political parties in elections, campaign funding, internal party democracy, gender balance, complicated procedures set for the establishment and termination of political parties in Ukraine. The report also offers recommendations on the solutions and prospects for the improvement of the Ukrainian legislation which regulates the functioning of political parties on the basis of the best European practices.

During the round table, the Agency presented the study “Regulation of Political Parties in Ukraine: Current State and Directions of Reforms”, which is based on the discussions of the key problematic issues related to the regulation of the activities of political parties in Ukraine, including those related to the participation of political parties in elections, campaign funding, internal political party democracy, gender balance, complicated procedures set for the establishment and termination of political parties. The report also offers recommendations on the ways and prospects to improve the Ukrainian legislation regulating the functioning of political parties on the basis of the best European practices. The study was undertaken by Denys Kovryzhenko, Director for Legal Programmes of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, with the financial support of the European Union within the framework of a joint EU-OSCE/ODIHR project.

The round table was opened by Marcin Walecki, Chief of OSCE/ODIHR Democratic Governance Unit, who defined the main aim of the national report on the legislation regulating the political parties in Ukraine – implementation of democratic transformations in the area of political party regulation. On behalf of ODIHR, Mr Walecki also expressed gratitude to the Agency for Legislative Initiatives for the fruitful cooperation during the project implementation.

After Mr Kovryzhenko presented the report, the following issues were discussed: (a) general principles for the regulation of establishment, functioning, and liquidation of political parties; (b) internal political party democracy; and (c) state and private funding of political parties and election campaigns.

Mykhaylo Shelep, Executive Director of the Centre for Political Analysis and Election Consulting, noted that timeliness of the study for the Ukrainian society. The expert, however, believes that the focus should be shifted from the ways to improve the legislation to the mechanisms for the implementation and observance of laws, since whatever imperfect the legislation may be, it will not be able to solve any problems if it is not observed.

Taras Plakhtiy, Member of the Male Kolo Society, emphasised the necessity to solve the problems of the internal political party democracy. The political scientist believes that political parties should deliver the following final product: (a) acquisition of public powers, which requires existence of a rigid hierarchical structure, and (b) generation of creative solutions for the current problematic issues, which requires developed horizontal links within the political party. In such a way, solution of this contradiction should become the starting point in the reform of the political party regulation in Ukraine.

Yuriy Kuzhelyuk, Member of Lviv City Council, believes that the main reason behind the degradation of the political party system in Ukraine is the constantly changing legislation, which not only sets additional barriers to political parties, but also undermines the voters’ trust to the political parties. Mr Kuzhelyuk also considers that the recent amendments, made to the law on local elections, had both positive and negative consequences. Thus, the positive changes included a ban on participation of political blocs, which often destabilise the functioning of the elected bodies, while cancellation of the possibility for the self-nomination of the mayoral candidates is regarded as a negative change.

Oles Starovoyt, Head of the Ideology Section of Our Ukraine Lviv Oblast Office Executive Committee, noted that the main problem of the imperfect political party regulation in Ukraine was lack of the public demand for such political parties, that would reflect the interests of specific voter groups, when a political party only strives to get the power without any general prospects and detailed action plans for the future.

Anatoliy Romanyuk, Director of the Centre for Political Studies, generally supported the recommendations presented in the report, having stressed the necessity to introduce state funding of political parties with efficient public control. The expert also referred to the European experience in termination of political parties: if a political party does not participate in elections a number of times in a row, it is cancelled automatically. Mr Romanyuk considers that members of political parties are not sufficiently interested in the proposals expressed by experts in terms of improvement of legislation related to the regulation of political parties.

Yuriy Shveda, Senior Lecturer of the Political Sciences Department of the Faculty of Philosophy of Lviv National Ivan Franko University, noted that the presented report meets the recommendations of the Venice Commission and reflects all aspects where the Ukrainian legislation is incompliant with the European standards. In the expert’s opinion, the legislative regulation of the political parties should ensure the balance between the liberal approach (whereby a political party is part of the society) and the public power paradigm (where a political party is identified with the government, while it is the government that regulates the activities of political parties). Mr Shveda considers that in any case competition should be ensured at the local level with the possibility of self-nomination, as well as a simplified procedure for the registration of political parties on the basis of an application should be introduced.

Certain round table participants, such as Vasyl Pasichnyk, Assistant Professor of the European Integration and Law Department of Lviv Regional Public Administration Institute, Olha Batyshcheva, Senior Lecturer of the Document Studies and Information Activities of the Ostrog Academy National University,Vasyl Marchuk, Director of Precarpathian Centre for Political Studies and European Integration Studies of Ivano-Frankivsk, were generally positive about the report, but noted that the study lacked the methodological basis – it was focused only on the normative side of the regulation of political parties omitting the substantial, from the political studies perspective, aspects of the functioning of political parties.

During the round table, the Agency presented the study “Regulation of Political Parties in Ukraine: Current State and Directions of Reforms”, which is based on the discussions of the key problematic issues related to the regulation of the activities of political parties in Ukraine, including those related to the participation of political parties in elections, campaign funding, internal political party democracy, gender balance, complicated procedures set for the establishment and termination of political parties. The report also offers recommendations on the ways and prospects to improve the Ukrainian legislation regulating the functioning of political parties on the basis of the best European practices. The study was undertaken by Denys Kovryzhenko, Director for Legal Programmes of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, with the financial support of the European Union within the framework of a joint EU-OSCE/ODIHR project.

The round table was opened by Ihor Kohut, Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, who described the regional expert discussions which preceded the preparation of the study, as well as emphasised the critical importance played by political parties in Ukraine’s social life before the local elections. He also suggested that the Parliamentary Committee for State Development and Local Self-Governance could establish a working group to analyse the proposals on the improvement of the functioning of political parties.

Oleksandr Omelchenko, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for State Development and Local Self-Governance, spoke about the problematic aspects related to the operation of Ukraine’s political parties. In particular, he stressed the difference between the registered political parties in Ukraine and the number of the relatively active ones, including those represented in the Parliament. In Mr Omelchenko’s opinion, a considerable difference between these figures evidences a problem in the democratic functioning of political parties. Mr Omelchenko also noted the importance for Ukraine to develop its own political party model and general political system.

Rene Bebeau, Senior Project Manager of the OSCE Project Coordinator, said he was confident that the presented study should become the basis for the development of further proposals on the improvement of the political system in Ukraine. Marcin Walecki, Chief of the OSCE/ODIHR Democratic Governance Unit, stressed that the presented report was the most complete study of the topic, and that it also contained the most successful practices of the European countries.

During the discussion of the study and the Ukrainian political party system, Ihor Zhdanov, President of the Open Ukraine Think Tank, expressed his assumption that with renewal of the Ukrainian Constitution in the its 1996 version, the Ukrainian political system will go back to its condition of 1998-2004, which was characterised by instable faction structure, as well as a formal relations between political parties and members of parliament acting on their behalf in the Verkhovna Rada. In this context, Yuriy Klyuchkovskyi, Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for State Development and Local Self-Governance, mentioned that the role of political parties in the political life of the country may decrease. He also pointed out to the necessity of the legislative support to the internal political party democracy. Volodymyr Stretovych, Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Legal Support to the Law-Enforcement Activities, pointed out to the danger of monopolisation of the political party system by one political party.

Regulation of Political Parties in Ukraine: Current State and Directions of Reforms