You're reading: Ukraine’s parliament faces long to-do list

Parliament speaker Volodymyr Groysman has a full agenda for a four-day session starting on Jan. 26.

Olena Shkrum, a lawmaker with the Batkivshchyna parliamentary faction, has low expectations. “We haven’t found common ground yet, thus, it won’t be an effective week for parliament,” Shkrum told the Kyiv Post.

A key question is whether the parliamentary ruling majority – which includes members of the Bloc of President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front, Samopomich Party, Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna Party – holds together for a 226-vote majority.

Constitution changes

Lawmakers must find 300 votes to pass in the second reading changes into the Constitution granting special status to Russian-separatist controlled areas of the Donbas, one of the requirements of the Minsk deal signed in February last year.

A group of 51 lawmakers addressed the Constitutional Court on Jan. 19, asking about the possibility to pass the changes later.

Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said the Constitution calls for changes to be passed in two subsequent sessions, or by Feb. 1, in this case. Otherwise, parliament should start the process from the very beginning, which could undermine Ukraine’s position in peace talks.

“I spoke to some European diplomats last year, who said if the constitutional changes are not passed, the politicians in the West who support softening of sanctions against Russia would get an additional argument to do that,” Fesenko said.

But Serhiy Kaplin, a lawmaker from the Bloc of President Petro Poroshenko, believes the Constitutional Court will extend the time to make the changes.

Anti-corruption laws

Kaplin said lawmakers need to make the law on electronic declarations by public officials come into effect this year, not on Jan. 1, 2017. E-filing of asset declarations this year is a key component for Ukraine to secure visa-free travel to the European Union.

Controversy ensued after parliament passed the state budget for 2016 because an amendment was snuck in to delay the electronic asset declarations for a year. Parliament passed the budget bill Dec. 25 and President Petro Poroshenko signed it on Dec. 31.

Another priority issue concerns the newly created anti-corruption body – National Agency for identifying, tracing and management of assets derived from corruption and other crimes.

Oleksandr Banchuk from the Center for Political and Legal Reforms said the European Commission wants the agency to be able to manage illicit assets either by transferring or selling them. It currently can only arrest illegal assets.

He also said that the agency should also be able to confiscate assets like property that is bought with money obtained through corrupt means, even if the property was registered or given to a relative or friend of the wrongdoer.

“The changes might seem controversial for our society, but we have to implement these changes,” Banchuk said.

Legislation concerning privatization and stripping lawmakers and certain judges of prosecutorial immunity should be urgently passed, according to Anatoliy Oktysiuk, a political expert with the International Center for Policy Studies in Kyiv.

He said lawmakers won’t move on to these issues until the constitutional changes on decentralization are resolved.

Olga Bielkova, a member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, agreed: “So far, the Constitution and public procurement top our list.”

Tax and budget

Amendments that define how the revised tax code should be administered are also critical.
Viktoria Ptashnyk, a lawmaker and member of parliament’s economy committee, said that parliament should focus on dismantling the fraudulent value-added tax refund schemes from which companies illicitly benefit. The bill passed by parliament suggested that two simultaneous registers of taxpayers will be kept.

“These (registers) will be impossible to keep, and so the committees need to work out a proper tax code by April,” Ptashnyk told the Kyiv Post.
A law on mediation to settle disputes out of court by using neutral third parties is also on the agenda.

Civil service, judicial

Another key vote, Shkrum said, was to dismiss three Kyiv city judges who were involved in illegal rulings against AutoMaidan activists. The High Council of Justice has already recommended 21 such judges to be dismissed.

The new law on civil service passed by parliament on Dec. 10 will come into effect on May 1, according to Shkrum, but parliament needs to pass at least 30 more bills for its proper implementation. n