The Committee on State Building and Local Self-Government held round table discussion “Reform of the local referendum institute: citizens’ participation in governance”
13 March 2013, 16:05
Opening the event, Davyd Zhvaniya stated that the need for legislative reform in the regulation of local referendum became imminent long ago, because for more than twenty years the Law "On national and local referendums" of 1991 was the basic legal act in this area. It became invalid according to the final provisions of the Law "On national referendum" adopted by the Parliament on November 6, 2012.
"Thus, we are talking not about reform, but about the necessity of legal regulation of local referendum institute as an important instrument of direct democracy," D.Zhvaniya said.
According to the people’s deputy, currently the Verkhovna Rada is considering a governmental bill on the local referendum, adopted in the first reading on April 19, 2011. D.Zhvaniya reminded the audience that the experts from the Council of Europe prepared the conclusion to the bill.
“Taking into consideration the necessity for a thorough revision of regulatory materials, the Committee decided to create a working group to prepare a bill on local referendum for the second reading, which will start after its inclusion to the agenda of the session," D.Zhvaniya said.
According to him, the main aim of the round table discussion is to draw public attention to the problem of legal regulation of the local referendum institute.
"The clear legislative regulation of these issues will allow local referendum to prevent undemocratic processes and inadequate decisions of authorities, and prevent ill use of frequent referendums that makes any long-term policy haphazard and inefficient," D. Zhvaniya said.
It was stated that from 1991 to 2009 in 19 regions of Ukraine, on the basis of the Law "On national and local referendums", 151 local referendums took place, 135 of them have been successful; 102 referendums were held in the villages. However, decisions have not always been implemented (in 9 areas every fourth decision left unfulfilled.) Most referendums concerned administrative and territorial issues (31.8%), names of settlements (25.7%) and organizational issues (20.4%).
Attention has been focused also on the provisions of the bill on local referendum (Reg. No. 0867). The document defines legal principles, procedure of organization of local referendum on the level of village, town, city or area in the city.
In particular, in was stated that, according to the conclusions of the European Council experts, this document “regulates all organizational aspects of local referendums, describe all procedural stages of organization of local referendum to guarantee impartiality and adequacy of expressed public opinion.” It was stressed also that the bill “opens a way to referendums initiated by the groups of citizens, and guarantees independent referendum and impartiality of voting results.”
Summing up the discussion, D.Zhvaniya stressed that the remarks and propositions expressed during the round table discussion will allow the Committee to prepare the bill for the submission to the Parliament, taking into accounts the position of civic society, Ukrainian experience and European standards.