The VRU Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence is working on improving the mobilization procedure in Ukraine.
MP Fedir Venislavskyi, Servant of the People faction and member of the VRU Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence, informed that the Committee had started working on amendments to Ukraine’s current legislation facilitating the regulation of military summons to internally displaced persons living outside their place of residence due to russia’s war in Ukraine.
On March 31, the VRU's First Deputy Speaker, Oleksandr Korniyenko, spoke at a forum co-organized by USAID RADA: Next Generation.
During his speech, he highlighted the importance of establishing effective communication channels between communities and Parliament, particularly during times of conflict. He cited the example of the successful parliamentary-municipal forum held in the Volyn region as a model for other regions to follow. Korniyenko emphasized that such forums enable Parliament to take the necessary steps to address local issues and implement responsive measures.
On March 29, 2023, USAID RADA: Next Generation Program presented the results of the conducted Legislative Quality Index and discussed it with MPs, experts and the International Parliamentary Union (IPU) at the International Parliamentary Technical Assistance Coordination Meeting.
VRU First Deputy Speaker Oleksandr Kornienko noted that the Parliament uses more and more instruments to evaluate its work, as they serve as guidelines to develop internal procedures. He mentioned that the indicators of the Legislative Process Index from the USAID RADA: Next Generation Program correspond to his expectations: low scores from the public for the transparency of the parliament's work are primarily related to security measures during martial law, while higher scores from of the executive power testify to the improvement of the interaction between the parliament and government.
Mykhailo Tepliuk, Deputy Head of the VRU Secretariat, Head of the Main Legal Department, noted that the Parliament performed its duties against all odds and improved its internal procedures. In his opinion, measuring the progress of the development of democratic institutions is a very important step toward strengthening the transparency of the parliament so that it is even more open and accessible to voters and the public. Mykhailo Teplyuk also noted the support from the USAID Rada: The Next Generation program for improving the institutional capacity of the parliament. He added that the results of the index would serve as a tool to improve the quality of work.
Oleksandr Piskun, Democracy Project Management Specialist, Office of Democracy and Governance, USAID, emphasized the importance of promoting next generation reforms to strengthen Parliament’s accountability to citizens. Parliament is a key institution for ensuring the Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine. Oleksandr Piskun noted that in public opinion polls, the parliament receives an increasingly high level of trust. He also mentioned the importance of joint work and coordination of the Parliament with local self-government bodies and businesses.
Andy Richardson, Program manager on parliamentary standards at the International Parliamentary Unit, mentioned that there are 25 key indicators that the IPU uses. They include: autonomy, administrative capacities, effectiveness, accountability, and those Indicators for Democratic Parliaments are broken into several categories: Targets, Sub-Targets, Indicators, Dimensions, Criteria. According to him, the IPU releases the preliminary version of indicators in order to receive feedback from 50 parliaments, but the parliaments’ secretariats play a major role in self-assessment.
Yulia Shypilova, Programme Officer Eastern Europe at the Regional European Programme, IDEA, presented their methodology regarding evaluating democratization, IDEA uses five major criteria: integrity of state governance, fundamental human rights, civil society engagement, representative government, and government oversight. In particular, Ukraine’s democratic development is a bit higher than the average among democracies.
During the meeting, the USAID RADA: Next Generation team presented the Index of Quality of the Legislative Process. Index is a self-assessment tool of the legislative procedures, their effectiveness, and compliance with international parliamentary standards.
Volodymyr Venher, Legislative Capacity Building Senior Expert, noted that the new methodology, based on self-assessing, was applied to evaluate the work of the eighth session of the VRU’s ninth convocation. 130 officials participated in the survey, namely politicians, the VRU Secretariat, civil society, and other stakeholders Serhii Kalchenko, Chair of the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada on Rules of Procedure, Parliamentary Ethics and Administration of Verkhovna Rada’s Work, noted that the results of the Index show that MPs and their aids are stricter toward their work compared to executive authorities and it indicated that Parliament is more consolidated.
On March 27, USAID RADA: Next Generation held a meeting to discuss the results of the post-legislative scrutiny (PLS) implementation of the law on cooperation for territorial communities with the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada on State Building, Local Governance, Regional, and Urban Development. The results of the PLS will be presented at the hearings of the Committee, which are preliminary planned for April 10.
On March 27-29, USAID RADA: Next Generation, together with the Training Unit of the Research Service, conducted a pilot training course for 40 VRU staffers on the approximation of Ukraine’s legislation to EU standards. The training helped form practical skills in adapting the Ukrainian legislation to the provisions of the EU acquis. In particular, participants learned how to write draft acts aimed at adopting various types of acts of EU law, assessing the impact and drawing up compliance tables.
On March 30, team's expert prepared two expert opinions on the compliance of the Constitution of Ukraine of the draft laws on amendments to certain legislative acts regarding the restriction of participation in state affairs by persons associated with political parties whose activities are prohibited in accordance with the law (9081 and 9081-1) In both cases, experts pointed out that draft laws' do not correspond to the Constitution of Ukraine and the course of European integration. Program's experts provided recommendations on improving legislative initiatives.
On March 25-27, the Rivne regional organization of the All-Ukrainian public organization "Civic network" OPORA", hosted a training on analytic documents, where NGOs and local self-government representatives learned about various types of analytic documents, the target audiences for them. Program provided grant opportunities to support civil society in selected target regions and to establish dialogue platforms to increase the level and quality of communicative engagement between MPs and their constituents, including targeted communications. On March 25, the participants of the training met with MP, Oleksandr Kovalchuk, to get practical knowledge on analytical documents required for MP’s work.
On March 31, Program assisted MPs in holding a Parliamentary municipal forum “Dialogue in favor of communities during martial law” in Lutsk to establish effective communication between communities and their MPs and parliament as a whole. The forum drew over 100 participants to discuss the economic and humanitarian challenges facing communities during wartime, and explore ways to solve them through parliamentary action. Attendees included First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Oleksandr Kornienko, Head of the VRU Committee on the Organization of State Power, Local Self-Government, Regional Development and Urban Planning, Olena Shuliak, and MPs representing the Volyn region such as Iryna Konstankevych, Ihor Huz, Viacheslav Rublyov.Naida Zecevich-Bean, Deputy Director, Office of Democracy and Governance, USAID, mentioned that USAID's support is directed primarily at the development and implementation of parliamentary reform to ensure the formation and development of the parliament as an open, transparent, accountable, and democratic institution.