On July 1, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine received draft decentralization amendments into the Constitution after President Petro Poroshenko's consideration.

Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Groysman

I believe this is a momentous event. The decentralization reform is what Ukraine has not managed to receive yet, this reform is a kind of a Rubicon between our Soviet and post-Soviet past. It has never been as close to the point of no return as it is now.

We are a step from achieving that goal. It surely depends on us — representatives of the leading political forces. We will make that step or otherwise we will regress, probably, for years.

I have fought and will continue fighting for this reform unless respective result is achieved. Over the period of the last year, I have taken part in numerous discussions at different offices and auditoriums persuading officials, politicians, journalists, ordinary people of that reform's importance. We and with domestic and foreign experts have spent hours in discussions on finding ways to really embody this idea.

Almost all critical remarks heard both from representatives of today's opposition and some coalition representatives do surprisingly coincide and touch upon the issue of introduction of prefects — new institution being introduced in the system of power in Ukraine. Everything new and what people are unused to is always perceived somewhat carefully. I would not like to discuss the name of the institution itself. Those, who either insist on this name or offer the name of "state governor" are equally correct. But I would rather like everyone to first of all feel its essence.

Aren't there corruption risks at the local level? Aren't there the case of abuse of office? Illegal decisions? Those are the case even for the developed European countries.

Now I'd like to try to explain the logic of the prefects institution. The decentralization literally means the transfer of authorities and respective resources from the center to the local level. The international experience indicates that is the only way to achieve real increase in the living standards of people and tackle their everyday problems. There is no other way for Ukraine if we want to make it successful. However, the transfer of authorities and finances to the local self-government bodies should be well-balanced by means of the mechanisms of control and responsibility to the people and the law. This is when prefects with control and supervisory functions appear.

The draft decentralization amendments offered by the Constitutional Commission contain Article 119 that reads that "A prefect controls the observance of the Constitution and Laws of Ukraine by local self-government bodies."

The said amendments do introduce opportunities of real decentralization, which is an unprecedented step in the history of Ukraine. However, we are not the first to start such reforms. Almost all the countries with developed local self-government have state bodies engaged in supervision over local self-government to ensure "observance of the law and constitutional principles." Aren't there corruption risks at the local level? Aren't there the cases of abuse of office? Illegal decisions? Those are the case even for the developed European countries. The prefects institution is destined to prevent misbalancing of the state as a result of the decentralization. That is an absolutely European-style practice and, probably, the adopted foreign word of "prefect" is better to understand that it is not a "Ukrainian know-how" as someone is trying to present it.

Let's now get down to the issue of appointment of prefects and the bodies that will control them.

Prefects will also have coordination functions that do refer to the system of executive power. "A prefect coordinates activity of territorial central executive bodies and controls observance of the Constitution and Laws of Ukraine; ensures implementation of state programs" (Article 119). Therefore, a mechanism to retain the balance of branches of power was offered. This mechanism is acting today during the appointment of heads of local administrations — the President appoints and dismisses prefects, however, that can happen only under respective recommendation of Ukrainian prime minister. There is no usurpation here in this issue.

The offered amendments envision: "If head of a community, council of the community, district, and regional councils pass an act that does not meet the Constitution of Ukraine, threatens state sovereignty, territorial integrity or national security, the President of Ukraine terminates the force of respective act and appeals to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. At the same time, he temporarily terminates authorities of the head of the community, members of community council, district and regional councils and organizes activity of respective acting local community self-government bodies, executive committee of district and regional councils." "If the Constitutional Court declares respective act unconstitutional, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine under recommendation of the President of Ukraine terminates authorities of the head of the community, members of community council, district and regional councils and calls snap election in compliance with the law." (Article 144).

As against some Ukrainian experts, European ones see no objections to such terms. A comment of the Venice Commission said that it seems quite founded that the President of Ukraine as the guarantor of the Constitution and local self-government should have authorities to intervene in a more effective and rapid way than the Verkhovna Rada, when local self-government bodies abuse office and violate the Constitution or threaten sovereignty, territorial integrity or national security of the state.

I'd like to point out that I am talking about the extreme threats. Risks of separatism in current conditions received lots of comments and no one seems to deny the necessity to counteract those risks. Doubted is only the fact that such a term should be enshrined in the Constitution. It is offered to introduce it only as an interim one as this is an allegedly "Ukrainian know-how" and no European Constitution contains such a term.

I'd let myself not agree with that. The Polish Constitution's Item 3 of Article 171 says that under the recommendation of the Head of Council of Ministers, the Sejm (Polish Parliament) can disband…  a body of territory self-government if that body violates the Constitution and the laws.

Similar mechanisms are envisioned in the Constitution of other European countries.

I am quite confident that despite all the speculations this reform cannot be stopped anymore. We have to finally create the wall between our post-Soviet past and its centralized inefficient way of organization and make a step towards successful European Ukraine.

Published in the Silova Stolytsia weekly, July 6, 2015 (No. 27/737).