Stricter procedure for appealing against sanctions, lyceums for territorial communities, and termination of one more CIS agreement

During this extremely hot week, government bodies were not as productive as usual and adopted only a few important decisions. For this digest, we have picked the ones most interesting for the state and territorial communities: two draft bills from the Verkhovna Rada and one Cabinet resolution.

 

New procedure for appealing against NSDC’s decisions on imposing sanctions (draft bill #5667)

Status: registered in the Verkhovna Rada.

Cosponsors: 16 MPs from Servant of the People faction with Fedir Venislavskyi as the first signatory.

Who is affected: persons under sanctions, the President, the National Security and Defense Council, and the Supreme Court.

Summary of the bill:

• transfers cases challenging NSDC’s decisions on imposing sanctions from the Kyiv District Administrative Court to the Supreme Court as a court of original jurisdiction
• prohibits the court to suspend decisions imposing sanctions during the proceedings
• grants the secretary of the NSDC the authority to oversee the implementation of Council’s decisions.

What is wrong:

• the bill proposes to transfer cases that should be considered by the Kyiv District Administrative Court to the Supreme Court. As a result, judges of the Supreme Court will be overloaded, cases will be considered with a delay, the quality of the Court’s decisions will suffer
• the prohibition to meet a claim by suspending a decision imposing sanctions is a way for the President to escape political responsibility for imposing sanctions:
  • the prohibition to suspend decisions makes it impossible for the Court to protect the rights of the suitors for the time of the proceedings
• the Apparatus of the NSDC cannot have any powers of its own since it is not a government body.

Alternative solution: control over the implementation of NSDC’s decisions should be a responsibility of NSDC’s members — the President, the Prime Minister, ministers, the Head of Security Service, and others.

 

Right for territorial communities to create lyceums (draft bill #4629-1)

Status: the bill is under revision before the second reading.

Who is affected: schoolchildren, teachers, local governments, and the Ministry of Education and Science.

Summary of the bill:

• introduces a concept of “safe educational environment” — the environment that prevents physical, moral, and property damage to participants of the educational process
• grants the right to establish lyceums to more territorial communities. In particular, the right will be granted to communities with a population of more than 50 thousand inhabitants
• defines the requirements for creating lyceums:

1. a) enough pupils for at least four classes of 10^th graders, three classes of 11^th graders, and two classes of 12^th graders
2. b) safe, inclusive, and digital educational environment
3. c) free accommodation (in boarding houses) or transfer for pupils, free food and access to wireless Internet.

What is right:

• the bill introduces requirements of a safe educational environment and thus will improve both the quality of education and quality of life for the pupils
• communities with enough children to establish lyceums and enough money to pay for them will be able to create lyceums.

What is wrong:

• there is a risk that the territorial system of specialized secondary education will be ineffective. Local communities will be reluctant to accept pupils from other communities to their lyceums. As a result, the number of lyceums can increase significantly but they will take only children from their territorial communities and there will be no competitive pressure for these children
• almost no pupils from small or poor territorial communities will have the privilege to study at lyceums.

Alternative solution: while establishing a unified network of lyceums, the state should take into account the tendencies in demographics, internal migration, labor market needs, economic and military priorities, science, sports, and culture.

 

One more agreement with CIS terminated by Ukraine (Cabinet resolution #642 of June 23, 2021)

Decision-maker: the Cabinet.

Who is affected: Ukraine and member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Summary of the resolution: Ukraine denounces the Agreement on Cooperation in Tourism and declares its intention to decline the offer to sign the Agreement on the CIS Tourism Council.

What is right: since the CIS is a tool for promoting the interests of the aggressor state of the Russian Federation, it is only proper that Ukraine continues to withdraw from CIS agreements.