16 June 2010, 13:36
Mykola Tomenko: The Day of Opposition in the Parliament turned into the Day of boycotting the Bills of the Opposition
"The day of opposition in the Parliament turned into the day of boycotting the bills of the opposition", Mykola Tomenko, Deputy Chairman of The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, stated at the parliament´s briefing. "Unfortunately, the opposition has currently no possibility to influence the legislative process", he stated.
M.Tomenko informed about the deliberate decision to suggest "no political, controversial and social bills" for scrutiny. "We suggested only non-political, non-social bills that have been awaiting adoption for a long time", he explained. He named several bills, among others, the bill on amendments to the Law "On Television and Radio Broadcasting" that settles the issues of broadcasting programs with the paid interactive competitions.
The Deputy Chairman of The Verkhovna Rada stated: "Today, we tried to offer an intermediary solution for organizing the Parliament´s work. We submitted only those bills that provoke no objections in the experts; however, they are boycotted by the coalition."
M.Tomenko stated that the fact that neither bill was supported in the first reading or referred to the repeated first reading, confirms "the deliberate intention of the coalition not to support any bill of the opposition." "The Parliament can not work this way, therefore, we will initiate meeting of the faction leaders to understand the intentions of the coalition factions, because currently, the legislative body looks like the Verkhovna Rada of the coalition, not the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine", the Deputy Chairman of The Verkhovna Rada stated.