"Today we have started another important reform — amendments to the Constitution touching justice. The voting for these issues was positive and successful. This is one more important step on the path of the reforms," First Deputy Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada Andrii Parubii said in the course of the meeting with co-rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Axel Fischer.
Parubii explained that "in compliance with effective legislation, the text of the draft law cannot be changed, however, several laws specifying the reforms can be adopted."
Parubii thanked the Council of Europe for its support to reforms in Ukraine. "The major goal is our way towards Europe, and any support in these times of war is very important," he said.
"We have to reform almost all the sectors. It may seem that the course of reforms in Ukraine is not very fast. However, the Verkhovna Rada of VIII convocation has done a lot of work on this way," Parubii said. He also said that "the decentralization reform is a large-scale reform, which has already been adopted in first reading." Besides, Parubii said that Ukraine has opened registers of state procurements, personal data. In his words, Ukraine has established the National Anticorruption Bureau and the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office. "These reforms could not be fast as everything had to be done from scratch," Parubii said.
He also reminded that the reforms also touched the election system. "The elections to local authorities took place under the new election legislation," he said. At that the politician noted that "all these happened against the background of the combat activities — protection of the state of Ukraine."
In turn, Mr. Fischer thanked for important and constructive discussion. He said that a report will be drafted for the Monitoring Committee of the PACE basing on the results of his visit. He added that the comprehensive report will be provided at the meeting of the PACE in January 2017.
Head of the Permanent Delegation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Volodymyr Ariyev also took part in the meeting.