Ukrainian parliamentarians have introduced in the agenda of the session and sent to the Constitutional Court a presidential bill amending the Basic Law on reducing the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada to 300 deputies and introducing solely a proportional electoral system.
Some 258 deputies voted for presidential bill No. 1017 on amending Articles 76 and 77 of the Constitution of Ukraine (on reducing the constitutional composition of the parliament and consolidating a proportional electoral system) on Sept. 3.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky proposes to consolidate the provision on the quantitative composition of the Verkhovna Rada of 300 deputies in Article 76 of the Constitution (according to the current version of the Constitution there are 450 of them), who are elected for five years (this norm does not change).
The draft law states that “a citizen who has a criminal record for committing a deliberate crime cannot be a deputy of Ukraine (now “elected to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine”) if this conviction is not canceled and not removed in the manner prescribed by law.”
It is also proposed to consolidate in Article 77 of the Constitution that the Verkhovna Rada is elected by the proportional system. At the same time, there remains the wording that the procedure for conducting parliamentary elections of Ukraine is established by law.
The transitional provisions of the draft law stipulate that the Verkhovna Rada, elected before the entry into force of this law, continues to perform its duties until the next election of Ukrainian deputies.
