What will the Parliament of Ukraine be like when the war is over

Informatiion Department
Published on 02 May 2022, at 17:57

When the war is over… Everyone tries to put some vision of their future in the second part of this sentence. We have reconsidered and changed our priorities so much since 24 February 2022. In fact, only a peaceful sky, health, a warm hearted look of a person you care about and a place called home. All this used to be just enough for happiness.

When the war is over, our cities will be rebuilt. An ambitious goal is to rebuild the infrastructure in 1-2 years. So we are going to visit Odesa for some opera entertainment or Mariupol to the seaside or Kherson for watermelons. And now we are doing everything to hear as soon as possible the dream: "We have crushed the enemy!".

When the war is over, what will the parliament be like?

I will say at once that it is none of the reading the tea leaves. Even before the war, we had developed some tools that will allow us to make progressive innovations in the activities of the Parliament of Ukraine after the war.

Let's start with the core. That is, the quality of legislation. The bill on law-making activity №5707 registered by me is the Constitution in the field of rule-making. It is designed to make legislative processes clear and effective, to regulate activities and relationships related to the planning, development, adoption, implementation of Normative Legal Acts and monitoring their implementation.

It will solve the problem of separation of the subject of law making from the results of its own law making activities, which is the result of the adoption of "laws for the sake of laws." This practice must vanish with no chance of returning.

Laws for the welfare of the Ukrainian people - this is what should be a priority. Parliamentary control is a reliable "safe box" for maintaining the level of public trust in the government. Work remains to be done to strengthen this function.

The Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada, which establish the order of our daily work, need to be changed. Each function of the parliament must be ensured by the relevant regulations, and the provisions of the Rules of Procedure must be a precondition for the transformation of the Verkhovna Rada as a whole. The working group that is working on these changes to the Regulations was established and started working before the war.

Now let's move on to the circulatory system of the Parliament of Ukraine - its Office, the internal structure of which must change.

People are the key value without which all of the above cannot be realised. That is why work on staff development and attracting professionals to the Verkhovna Rada is one of the main goals of parliamentary reform.

Trainings, exchange of experience, acquisition of new knowledge, skills, study of EU law, investment of the state in the professional development of its civil servants - this is and will be the best investment during the reconstruction of Ukraine.

Digitalization is what sets the pace of parliament. War, like a disease, points to weaknesses that need to be addressed. First of all, it is necessary to strengthen security in cyberspace and information space, providing every citizen and international partners with access to Ukrainian legislation, uninterrupted updating of data on the official website.

The format of plenary sessions should be ready for remote work. The system of remote voting will allow the Verkhovna Rada to remain operational in the event of any emergency. This requires both legislative changes and proper technical support.

When the war is over, we will do everything to establish a modern, effective, responsible, accountable and democratic Parliament of Ukraine!

Ruslan Stefanchuk