At the meeting with the members of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) on Thursday, Deputy Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Oksana Syroyid said: "Thanks to joint efforts of the Ukrainian and European experts we managed to find those formulas of amendments to the Constitution that would really allow us to hold the reforms." "Moreover, understanding how challenging it is to introduce something new we actually started our work from the moment when the constitutional amendments were voted for at the very first time," she said.
She said that over this period, the people's deputies of Ukraine have managed to agree the model of amendments to the law on judicial system and status of judges, to procedure codes, to the Law of Ukraine "On advocateship," to legal education, and partially to the prosecutor's office. "So far, we have managed to elaborate the draft law in principle, new wording of the law on judicial system and the status of judges and amendments to the Constitution," she said.
Noting good quality of the elaborated draft law, Deputy Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Oksana Syroyid criticized the amendments to the Law of Ukraine "On prosecutor's office," and the appointment of the prosecutor general of Ukraine in compliance with those amendments. She expressed confidence that "the way that law was amended in, and the way of the appointment of the prosecutor general fully contradicted all European prosecutor's office standards and rules." "That considerably undermined the trust of our political force in the process of the judicial reform. Acknowledging the necessity for that reform, we are still unsure of good intentions of the state [ruling authorities] in the implementation of this reform," she said.
In speaking of the election reform, Oksana Syroyid noted "she would implicitly like to have so-called Ukrainian oligarchs to become successful businessmen in the future." At the same time, "the influence of the oligarchs on the political process, the influence on the Parliament, on the political system must be limited." "Unfortunately we have no hope to succeed in all our reforms without the limitation of the oligarchs' influence. Thus, the proportional election system with open lists could be an instrument able to overcome political corruption," the Deputy Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine said.
Oksana Syroyid said that all the political forces as well as the President of Ukraine have expressed their readiness to support the proportional system with open lists. "I hope they will remain committed to that process till the very end. The sooner the draft law is adopted the better it is for the whole political system of Ukraine. We are also confident that the adoption of the law will prevent from calling snap parliamentary election, which is clearly of a great threat to Ukraine," she said.