Draft bill #5707 of June 25, 2021
Cosponsors: a group of 191 MPs from all factions and groups with Ruslan Stefanchuk as the first signatory.
Status: the bill is adopted and awaits to be signed by the Speaker of Parliament and the President
Who is affected: all parties engaged in lawmaking
Summary of the bill:
- the bill defines the lawmaking as follows:
- lawmaking is an activity carried out by an authority with the purpose to:
- plan the drafting or adoption (issuance) of legal acts
- draft legal acts
- adopt (issue) legal acts
- keep records of legal acts
- conduct legal monitoring
- the bill will not apply to:
- conduct of referendums
- declaration of mobilization, martial law, emergency state, state of war or peace, use of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, exercising of power related to national security, defense, or foreign affairs
- adoption and amendment to the Budget Code of Ukraine
- amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine
- international treaty drafts
- proposals and amendments to draft bills adopted by the Parliament in the first and subsequent readings
- acts that do not contain norms of law (decisions of the CCU, court decisions, acts of a political nature issued by the Verkhovna Rada and the President, individual legal acts)
- the following parties are recognized as engaged in lawmaking: subjects of lawmaking activity, subjects of lawmaking initiative, subjects of lawmaking activity support, and interested parties
- the following requirements will be introduced to guarantee the right to free access to information regarding lawmaking activities:
- public disclosure of information
- broadcasting of meetings on TV and radio, online media, online broadcasts, publication of meeting transcripts, and publication of information on official websites
- parties guilty of restricting access to information will be held liable
- the following hierarchy of legal acts will be established:
- Constitution of Ukraine
- international treaties
- laws
- parliamentary resolutions, presidential decrees
- cabinet resolutions, legal acts of the National Bank
- ministry orders
- acts of other government bodies
- resolutions of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea
- acts of oblast, Kyiv, and Sevastopol state administrations
- acts of raion state administrations
- acts of local self-government bodies
- the following documents will be recognized as public policy documents:
- analytical public policy documents (green papers, impact assessments, white papers, legal act concepts)
- public policy prognosis documents
- strategic public policy documents (Presidential Address to the Verkhovna Rada, Coalition Agreement, Cabinet Roadmap Program, nationwide and local programs of economic or social development)
- for laws and legal codes, it will be mandatory to first present a concept draft. These concept drafts will be presented at the meetings of the designated committees of the Verkhovna Rada
- the development of a draft of a legal act will include the following stages:
- preparation of the draft bill, explanatory note, and other accompanying documents
- assessment of the impact of the draft bill on social relations
- assessment of the compliance of the draft bill with Ukraine’s obligations as a candidate for EU membership and EU law
- organizational and technical support for the development of the draft legal act
- public consultations
- consultations regarding the draft bill with relevant government bodies or local self-government bodies if such consultations are required by particular laws
- the main expert institution for conducting legal expertise of draft bills will be the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
- legal acts will be registered by the Ministry of Justice after mandatory verification for compliance with:
- the Constitution and laws of Ukraine
- the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and its Protocols, international treaties of Ukraine, and Ukraine’s obligations as a candidate for the EU membership
- practice of the European Court of Human Rights
- rules of lawmaking techniques
- the Unified State Register of Legal Acts will be created — a state information and communication system that will ensure the collection, accumulation, registration, accounting, and storage of legal acts
- the public will be informed by ministries and other government bodies about the legal acts after these acts are registered and included in the Unified State Register of Legal Acts
- the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet will have to carry out legal monitoring of effective legal acts that were adopted before 1991
- this law will come into force one year after the termination of martial law.
What is right: the legislator is trying to enhance the quality of the lawmaking process and standardize its procedures.
What is wrong:
- provisions regarding the work of the Verkhovna Rada are unconstitutional since the Constitution states that the rules of conduct of work of the Parliaments should be defined by the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada
- not all types of legal acts are sufficiently clarified. For example, there are no procedures for the acts of local self-government bodies
- the requirement for draft bills to be reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences violates the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada. The mandatory review of draft bills has to be conducted by the relevant departments of the Verkhovna Rada
- the requirement to inform the public about the legislative act only after it was registered may give the Ministry of Justice leverage over the legislator: the ministry will be able to create obstacles during the registration process. This may result in the undermining of the independence of state authorities
- no justification was provided for not applying the regulations proposed by the draft bill to issues related to national security, defense, or foreign affairs