Since the
beginning of the seventh convocation of the Verkhovna Rada work, 639 bills were
considered, 166 of them adopted in entirety. This is said in the article of
Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Rybak "The
key problem is that the significant part of MPs drifts apart from electorate"
published in the newspaper “Holos Ukrainy” on Tuesday.
Volodymyr Rybak claimed that the legislative process was taking place under difficult political conditions: “We should not have just discussed general political problems of the time, we should have adopted extremely important for the society laws. Particularly, as a result of blocking the Parliament by the opposition, the fate of the State Budget of Ukraine for 2014, of the package of important social and economic bills, as well as adoption of laws insuring job creation and increase of social assistance to the population were at risk.”
In general, as the Chairman of the Parliament informed, at the end of the session the Committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine had 2069 important for the society bills under consideration, including 50 of them with an order for their preparation for the second reading. “Instead of their consideration and adoption, a lot of parliamentarians were on self-willed “crisis holidays,” claimed the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada.
Nevertheless, he claimed that a constructive part of the deputies’ corps was result-oriented, worked for the voters’ benefit and did not let exclude the Verkhovna Rada from the country’s political life and reduce the legislative achievements of the Parliament to nothing.
Estimating legislative achievements of the third session of the Verkhovna Rada of the seventh convocation, Volodymyr Rybak informed that during the third session the Parliament was working in a plenary mode for 33 calendar days. During this time, 44 morning and evening plenary meetings were held. 241 issues were discussed with further adopting the decisions. Moreover, 4 parliamentary hearings and 5 Government Question Hours were held.
Volodymyr Rybak stated that the Parliament adopted a package of bills in the framework of preparation for signing the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, amended the Constitution of Ukraine in the part of the Accounting Chamber, and adopted the State Budget of Ukraine for 2014 to carry out its main tasks. Out of 8 considered bills, defined as high priority ones by the President of Ukraine, 5 bills were adopted in entirety, amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine regarding guarantees of judges’ independence with consideration of the conclusion of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine were previously approved.
The Chairman of the Parliament provided statistical data, according to which, during the session’s work decisions were made for 322 bills, 77 laws were adopted or confirmed, 34 bills were adopted in the first reading, 211 – recommitted, rejected and excluded from consideration, 146 of them were withdrawn and returned to the subjects of legislative initiative.
Moreover, 230 resolutions on issues of legislative procedure, organization of work, statutory and supervisory powers of the Parliament were formed during the session.
During the session, 14 bills submitted by the President of Ukraine, 74 – by the Cabinet of Ministers, 234 – by the people’s deputies of Ukraine were considered. According to the thematic scope, issues of different branches development (112 bills) and economic policy (80 bills) prevailed.
Among adopted bills at end of the session, 63 were signed and came into force, out of them 11 – on the issues of ratification of international agreements, and 43 – on amendments to the acts of the current legislation. 7 laws were adopted in a new version. 2 laws were adopted in the framework of making the decisions by the President of Ukraine. Moreover, 12 adopted laws are now being prepared to be signed by the President of Ukraine.
Volodymyr Rybak stressed that the parliamentary committees worked quite actively. According to him, the Committee on Budget was the most active. It elaborated 11 laws that were later adopted. The Committee on Legislative Support of Law Enforcement elaborated 9 laws, the Committee on Taxation and Customs Policy – 8 laws. The biggest part of interstate agreements (there were 6 of them) was ratified at the instance of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.