New lockdown restrictions, Strategy for de-occupation of Crimea, and competitions for civil services positions: decisions by Cabinet and President

While MPs called a special plenary session to make a political statement on a recent protest near the Office of the President, the Cabinet and the President made several decisions of real importance. Today in our digest: new lockdown restrictions, new competitions for civil service positions, and the Strategy for de-occupation and reintegration of temporarily occupied Crimea.

Decision-maker: the Cabinet.

Who is affected: government bodies, local governments, businesses, Ukrainian citizens, and foreign citizens on the Ukrainian territory.

What does the resolution change:

• foreign citizens will be allowed to enter the territory of Ukraine only with negative results of recent (taken less than 72 hours before crossing the border) PCR-tests for the coronavirus
• foreign citizens and stateless persons that reside in Ukraine and employees of official international missions are permitted to cross the border with the temporarily occupied territories
• government bodies and educational establishments will proceed with External independent evaluation (including trial sessions) and entrance exams despite the pandemic
• citizens of Ukraine from the temporarily occupied territories will be able to sign up for vaccination online and receive invitations to immunization on the territory controlled by the Ukrainian Government

new restrictions for “red” epidemiological zones:

• everyone is obliged to wear a mask in public spaces
• the responsibility for introducing and enforcing some of the restrictions were shifted on local authorities:
• on passenger road and railroad transportation (regular and irregular)
• on passenger transportation by cars with less than 6 passengers
• on employee transportation by rental and company vehicles
• the State Commission on Technogenic and Environmental Safety and Emergency Situations has the authority to prohibit passengers from boarding automobile or interregional railway transportation vehicles.

What is wrong:

• lockdown restrictions imposed by the Cabinet are characteristic of an emergency state that can be declared only via a presidential decree approved by the Verkhovna Rada. For over a year now, the Government acts outside of its constitutional authority
• the Constitutional Court has already ruled lockdown restrictions introduced by the Cabinet unconstitutional.

Decision-maker: the President.

Who is affected: the Cabinet, government bodies, local governments, and Ukrainian citizens, especially those living on the territory of temporarily occupied Crimea.

Strategy in a nutshell:

• defines guidelines and priorities for state policy on de-occupation of Crimea in the following areas:
• protection of human rights and freedoms
• legal protection of citizens and national legal entities
• economic, social, humanitarian, environmental, and information policies
• strengthening of national resilience
• international cooperation
• the Strategy is supposed to be implemented by the Cabinet.

What is right: roadmap and action plan for de-occupation of the temporarily occupied territories must exist if the state intends to free its citizens and land from the aggressor.

What is wrong:

• the Strategy proposes no specific actions nor objectives for the de-occupation and reintegration of temporarily occupied Crimea. It consists of tasks that government body are performing for a long time now or even already completed
• aside from the Cabinet, no other body is explicitly assigned any responsibility for implementing the Strategy. Defining each task, the President just says “Ukraine”.

What’s next: presidential approval of the Strategy is only the beginning. If it is to be implemented, the President, the Cabinet, and the Parliament have to cooperate and put their joint efforts to the task of de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories.

Decision-maker: the Cabinet.

Who is affected: ministries, central executive bodies, local state administrations, civil servants, candidates for civil service positions, and Ukrainian citizens.

What does the resolution change:

• contracts for civil service positions awarded under “lockdown” competitions remain in force only up to the date new competitions are held
• changes to contract terms will be made by ministries, other central executive bodies, and local state administrations. New competitions have to be announced within six months
• it is prohibited to transfer civil servants hired under “lockdown” competitions to other positions within the service
• job interviews for civil service positions are allowed to be conducted via videoconferences.

What is right: proper competitions will gradually make civil service professional and apolitical.

To know more about the developments in Ukrainian civil service, please read the article by Nazar Zabolotnyi, analyst of the Centre of United Actions: Staff shortage or unattractive employer: why Ukrainians are not eager to become civil servants? Pitfalls of the new law on competitions are explained in the article by our analyst Oleh Savychuk Make everyone an acting minister.

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