Lawmaking, state symbols, and digitalization

MPs have less and less time to make decisions on matters of national importance before holidays: the current parliamentary session ends in less than three weeks. Draft bills registered during this time will be considered by the Parliament much later, in autumn. This gives Ukrainian citizens enough time to respond to the bills that will affect their rights, safety, and well-being.

Among such bills: introduction of lawmaking rules for governing bodies, fulfillment of the constitutional requirement concerning state symbols, and establishment of legislative basis for high-quality public transportation services.

 

Define rules for lawmaking (5707)

Cosponsors: 195 MPs from different factions and groups including the leaders of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk (the First Deputy Chairperson), Dmytro Razumkov (the Chairperson of the Parliament), and Olena Kondratiuk (the Deputy Chairperson).

Who is affected: MPs, the President, the Cabinet, ministers, heads of local state administrations, government bodies, local governments, and Ukrainian citizens.

Summary of the bill:

• defines basic requirements for lawmaking: structure of normative acts, terminology, language, style, content, and techniques of lawmaking
• forbids the President, the Parliament, and the Government to delegate their lawmaking powers
• defines the structure and hierarchy of Ukrainian normative acts: from the Constitution and laws to acts by local governments and professional associations
• introduces requirements for planning lawmakers activities, legal forecasting, and scientific concept of legislative development
• obliges to conduct public consultations before submitting draft bills defining certain rules of behavior
• creates a unified state register of normative acts that will be held and maintained by the Ministry of Justice.

What is right:

• it is overdue for Ukraine to introduce basic regulations on lawmaking. Normative acts are often chaotic, there are no unified terminology, structure, and style.

What is wrong: the requirement to conduct public consultations will slow lawmakers down. It is often required from the Cabinet, the President, and the Parliament to act as soon as possible, so for some important decisions there will be no time to hold public consultations. Also, the consultation procedure proposed by the bill will make it impossible to register alternative draft bills.

Public consultations should be held about concepts, strategies, or drafts of state policies and not about finalized documents.

 

Approve the design of the Great National Coat of Arms of Ukraine (5712)

Sponsor: the President of Ukraine.

Who is affected: government bodies, local governments, and Ukrainian citizens.

Summary of the bill:

• approves the Great National Coat of Arms of Ukraine
• provisions mandatory use of the Great National Coat of Arms of Ukraine on official symbols of the President, seals of the President, the Verkhovna Rada, the Cabinet, the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, facades of the buildings of the Verkhovna Rada, the Cabinet, the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, and the session hall of the Verkhovna Rada
• introduces the following prohibition concerning the Great Coat of Arms:
  • to imitate or use it in branding of political parties or civic associations
  • to use it in advertisement (except for social ads about the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine)
  • to put any inscriptions or images over the Great National Coat of Arms of Ukraine regardless of their content.

Why this is important:

• at the end of August of 2020, the Parliament adopted resolution #3994 to announce the contest for the best design of the Great National Coat of Arms of Ukraine and the Cabinet promptly announced the contest
• the contest committee headed by the Minister of Culture Oleksandr Tkachenko and the Minister of Justice Denys Maluska chose the winner, the Ministry of Justice was assigned to prepare the draft bill
• President Volodymyr Zelensky then submitted a draft bill proposing to approve as the Great Coat of Arms not the design chosen via the contest but an image submitted to the Verkhovna Rada back in 2009.

What is right: the bill fulfills the constitutional requirement that Ukraine has to have the Great Coat of Arms.

What is wrong: the President has ignored the contest results announced by the Verkhovna Rada and conducted by the Cabinet of Ministers.

What’s next: for the presidential bill on approving the design of the Great Coat of Arms to pass, it has to be supported by at least two-thirds of the Parliament — 300 votes.

 

Introduce e–tickets for public transportation (5705)

Sponsor: the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Who is affected: local governments, transportation companies, and city transport passengers.

Summary of the bill: e-tickets are recognized as legally binding documents constituting an agreement on transporting passengers or luggage. In other words, the bill allows substituting paper tickets with electronic tickets.

Why this is important:

• e-tickets are already in use in several cities of Ukraine. In particular, in Kyiv, Lviv, and Dnipro
• starting from July 14, Kyiv public transport will no longer use paper tickets.