The two-day conference took place at the premises of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on May 19-20.
‘Ukraine has steadily been moving along the path of reforms to ensure both the society and the system of power, and the Parliament itself be more democratic and public,’ mentioned A.Parubii, the Parliament’s Chairperson in his greeting speech to the Global Legislative Openness Conference delegates on Friday in Kyiv. More than 300 parliamentarians and the civil societies’ representatives from over fifty states were under one roof. The event was called ‘an evidently historic day for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine’.
The wide and high level attendance of the event generated a huge public and political attention to the conference, emphasizing the relevance and importance of parliamentary reforming towards greater openness. Ukraine was one of the eight states engaged in shaping the road map for those transformations.
The forum delivered a rare opportunity to share and benefit from common experience, to find out of fresh trends in legislative power transparency, to learn more about the best world IT tools for public participation.
The event’s second day was given a start with the ex-President of the European Parliament Pat Cox’s review of the nexus between legislative openness and democracy strengthening.
Viktoriia Siumar, the Head of the Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information Policy made then her brief of the principles of openness, answerability, and transparency which were among priorities of the Parliament’s activities.
Budget policy, open data use and parliamentary ethics were the topics of the further discussions.
Giving her address, Hanna Hopko, the Head of Committee on Foreign Affairs noted the current Parliament had contributed vastly towards openness by establishing of anti-graft and corruption bodies, and introducing of electronic declaration. It was also stressed that despite the continuing Russian aggression Ukraine had been opposing threats and challenges, doing its reforms.
Svitlana Zalishchuk, the Head of the Subcommittee on Euro-Atlantic Cooperation and European Integration of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, in her concluding statement, underlined that the core missions though were giving more power to the people, setting fairer social regulations, addressing inequality, combating bribery.
She also expressed her confidence that those changes would develop apace, requiring more and more pains from politicians, law enforcement offices, journalists, and civil society activists.
'It is our common task to further and uphold the positive role of public scrutiny over governments,' she added at the end of her speech.