Local elections, new NBU Head, and competition for SBI Director: new decisions by the Parliament
17 July 2020
In the last week before summer break, the Parliament made a number of important decisions that will have a significant impact on people’s everyday life and the system of checks and balances.
MPs set local elections date, send their representatives to the contest committee for selection of the SBI Director, appointed a new NBU Head, and in the first reading adopted a bill on acceptable reasons to skip parliamentary meetings and committees.
Local elections date set (3809)
Status: adopted by the Parliament, awaits to be signed by the President.
Who is affected: Ukrainian citizens, political parties, local government, and government bodies.
What does it change:
- local elections date is set for October 25, 2020. Voters will elect their local councilors, heads of cities, towns, and villages
- the CEC will schedule first elections in newly created amalgamated territorial communities
- no elections will be held on the temporarily occupied territories.
What is right: the Parliament has fulfilled its constitutional obligation to schedule local elections on the last Sunday of October each 5 years.
What is wrong: there is still no decision on amalgamating raions: if the Parliament is going to abolish some of the raion councils before the elections, the CEC, potential candidates, and voters should know in advance.
Voted for the bill: all factions and groups except Opposition Platform — For Life.
New NBU Head appointed (3857)
Status: adopted by the Parliament, awaits to be signed by the President.
Who is affected: Ukrainian citizens, business, government bodies, and the Cabinet.
What does it change: Kyrylo Shevchenko is appointed as the Head of the National Bank of Ukraine.
Why this is important: at the beginning of July, Verkhovna Rada dismissed Yakiv Smolii as the NBU Head upon the submission by the President. Smolii cited “systematic political pressure on NBU”.
Voted for the bill: all factions and groups except factions European Solidarity and Holos.
Additional information: upon the submission by the President, Verkhovna Rada also appointed Olha Pishchanska as the Head of the Anti-Monopoly Committee and Oleh Uruskyi as the Vice Prime Minister — Minister of Strategic Industries.
Parliamentary representatives sent to the contest committee for selection of SBI Director (3768)
Status: adopted by the Parliament, awaits to be signed by the President.
Who is affected: Ukrainian citizens, law enforcement officers, judges, servicemen, top officials, MPs, the President.
What does it change: three parliamentary representatives will be included to the contest committee for selection of the SBI Director:
- Andrii Kozlov, member of the High Qualification Commission of Judges in 2016—2019
- Lidiia Moskvych, head of the Department of judicial organization and prosecutorial activities at Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University
- Vasyl Nor, ex-head of the Department of Criminal law and criminology at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv.
Why this is important: for over six months, the SBI is led by acting heads. Since March, acting SBI Director is Oleksandr Sokolov. His First Deputy Oleksandr Babikov represented interests of Ukrainian ex-president Viktor Yanukovych in the court of law.
Voted for the bill: Servant of the people and Holos faction, group Trust.
Additional information: the Parliament failed to send its representatives to the contest committee for selection of administrative staff of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.
Bill on acceptable reasons for MPs to skip meetings passed in first reading (3642)
Status: awaits the second reading, MPs still have time to submit amendments.
Who is affected: MPs.
What does it change:
- the bill introduces a list of acceptable reasons for MPs to skip plenary and committee meetings. The list includes work trips, participation in official delegations, temporary disability, orders from the Parliament etc.
- as penalty for unexcused absence MPs could be deprived from reimbursements for expenses incurred in the exercise of office (tickets, daily allowance etc.)
What is wrong:
- the bill addresses consequences instead of the problem and its causes. The issue of low attendance of plenary and committee meetings should be resolved by parties that nominated undisciplined MPs and factions accepting such MPs to their ranks
- proposed penalties are financially negligible for wealthy MPs
Alternative solution: to change the voting procedure by allowing the Parliament to adopt ordinary laws and resolutions by simple majority vote (instead of a constitutional majority of 225+). That will empower opposition, make each vote more valuable, and motivate MPs from the Coalition to attend meetings.
Voted for the bill: all factions and groups except European Solidarity.
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