You're reading: Week in the Rada: What was done on Feb. 7-10

This week the Ukrainian parliament opened for the sixth of nine scheduled sessions. The lawmakers, just having returned from a week-long holiday, seemed disinclined to do much work, with Verkhovna Rada Chairman Andriy Parubiy sometimes practically begging them to stay in their seats and vote for some important bills.

Once – on Feb. 8 – he had to end the parliamentary meeting early, as there were less than 200 lawmakers present: 226 votes are required for ordinary votes to pass.

Nevertheless, the parliament finally managed to pass a long-awaited package of legislation on government decentralization. Lawmakers also voted for the law on the Constitutional Court of Ukraine at first reading, taking the first step towards reforming the institution.

Decentralization

Ukrainian lawmakers on Feb. 9 passed three important bills that will help towns and villages set up more than 200 so-called amalgamated communities for self-administration by the end of the year.

Civic activists have urged lawmakers for months to get their act together and vote for the issue, especially since the majority of the parliament members eagerly use the interests of the ordinary people in their political speeches.

This was the third attempt by lawmakers to pass the decentralization package. The last time they tried was on Dec. 6 – at that time, after the Rada couldn’t find enough votes to pass the first of three bills on decentralization, reform-minded lawmakers had to scramble to remove the other two from the agenda to stop them from being rejected too.

Constitutional Court

In a vote on Feb. 9 lawmakers passed at first reading the draft law on the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. The bill was designed to eliminate technical obstacles and unlock the constitutional changes regarding court reform that were passed in the summer of 2016 and that were supposed to have come into effect on Sept. 30.

This bill, when adopted at second reading, will make changes to the structure of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, change the way judges are hired, and alter their powers.

However, critics say that while the bill states there should be an independent competition to select candidates for judge positions, the procedure for holding the competition was not set out in the document. They argue that the competition might end up being rigged by the ruling authorities.

No amber again

This week lawmakers also voted for another long-awaited bill designed to legitimize amber mining in Ukraine. However, lawmakers failed to pass this one at second reading.

Parubiy put the bill, passed at first reading in April 2015, up for the vote several times on Feb. 7, but each time it failed to pass.

Parubiy then made a vague address to the government, asking that it prepare and table in parliament a draft law “that would be supported by the parliament.”

Supporters of the bill pointed to its importance, considering the huge scale of illegal amber mining in Ukraine, and the conflicts the illegal business has caused. In the latest incident in mid-January, two people were killed in a gunfight among amber miners in Zhytomyrska Oblast.

Slippery slopes

This week civil activists have also been ringing alarm bells over two legislative initiatives that they believe are undermining the fight against graft.

One of them is a draft law that is an amendment to the anti-corruption bill, adopted in 2014. This new draft law was registered in parliament in January, but the anti-graft watchdog organizations have only just noticed it.

If adopted, it would narrow the circle of people who are obliged to file electronic asset declarations. In particular, heads and managers of the state companies would be relieved of this responsibility.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk, as well as civil activists, urged lawmakers not to vote for the draft law on inheritance tax. The bill, passed at first reading back in 2014, was amended early in February. According to Danyliuk, if the law is passed, it will revive the tax police, a body that was considered corrupt and was stripped of its powers from Jan. 1.

Nina Yuzhanina, a Ukrainian lawmaker with the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko faction and head of the parliamentary tax committee, which approved the new amendments, said that the tax police was left outside the law because of a technical mistake, and it can’t be eliminated until its successor, the finance police, starts operating.

The draft law that would launch a Western-style finance police to replace the Soviet-style tax police has been championed by civil activists and the business community. Danyliuk promised his ministry would finalize the bill as soon as possible for lawmakers to pass it.