In May 2012, Ukrainian parliamentarians have registered 329 draft laws and resolutions, fourth part of which concerned economy, finance, and administration. The Verkhvna Rada of Ukraine adopted 88 laws and resolutions, 32 of which introduced holidays, and 17 - discharged or appointed judges. The Civil Network OPORA continues to watch and analyze law-making activities of MPs of Ukraine of VII convocation.
The Party of Regions registered 92 draft laws and resolutions in May, AUU Batkivshchyna – 70, AUU Svoboda – 24, non-faction MPs – 23 draft laws, the Communists – 18. Members of the UDAR Faction were the least active law-makers in May – 14 initiatives. 88 interfaction draft laws and resolutions were included to the general results of parliamentary activities. However, such statistics should be viewed through the prism of the size of factions.
The fourth part of all initiatives concerned economy, finance, and administration; 19% – policy and state administration, 18% – law-enforcement system and justice. MPs were not very interested in foreign affairs, security, and defense, as well as in previous months, after all.
Members of the Party of Regions were mostly interested in material issues; 41% of their draft law concerned these spheres. Members of the UDAR and the Communist Party were active in the same spheres, 43% and 33% of registered bills respectively. 22% of draft laws registered by non-faction MPs also pertained to monetary issues. AUU Batkivshchyna was focused on law-enforcement and justice issues (33% of draft laws). AUU Svoboda has concentrated on ecology and environment (29%). 40% of draft laws, commonly written by representatives of different factions regulated new relations in politics and state administration.
MPs of the biggest opposition Faction AUU Batkivshchyna registered 35 purposeful legislative initiatives in May. Biggest part of their attention MPs have paid to the reforms and changes in the judicial and law-enforcement systems (16), a little less to introduction of holidays and memorable dates (8 initiatives), and equally to economy, finance, administration and humanitarian issues – 7 initiatives in each sector. MPs were less focused on social standards and local self-government – 5 draft laws and resolutions in each sector. Only 2 initiatives were registered in health care sphere, and 1 in foreign affairs.
Among initiatives drafted by the Party of Regions are: amendments to codes (Tax, Land, and Customs), draft laws adopted as a basis, defeated, or sent for further elaboration, and some draft laws pertaining to introduction of holidays and memorable dates. The total number of MPs which participated in law-making is 58 (28%). Hryhorii Kaletnik and Volodymyr Makieienko have drafted the largest number of legislative initiatives – 6 each.
Draft laws of the UDAR concerned financing of the city planning documentation development, procedure for registration of legal entities and natural persons - entrepreneurs, taxation of real property. The most important bill in social policy is those proposing to repeal some regulations of the pension reform.
The Communist Party didn't propose any valuable document, particularly to resolve socio-economic issues which should be of primary importance for them. Only 9 of 32 members of the Communist Party participated in the preparation of legislative initiatives, registered in the Parliament during the previous month. Registered by the CPU draft laws, which concern financial, economic, and administrative issues, are formalistic (concerned the certain draft laws adopted as a basis, defeated, or sent for further elaboration). Besides that, they all were drafted by Pet Tsybenko as a Head of the Committee on Social Policy and Labor, and Spiridon Kilinkarov as a Head of the Committee on construction, city planning, housing service and regional politics.
Registered by the Svoboda draft laws, which pertain to environmental issues and natural resource management, are formalistic (concerned the certain draft laws adopted as a basis, defeated, or sent for further elaboration), and were jointly drafted by members of the Committee on Environmental Policy, Use of Natural Resources and Chornobyl Aftermath Mitigation, headed by Iryna Sekh. Members of the Svboda registered 4 bills in the sphere of humanitarian policy, focused mainly on the development of Ukrainian book publishing. The same number of initiatives from the Svoboda concern introduction of holidays and memorable dates.
In May, three opposition factions (AUU Batkivshchyna, AUU Svoboda, UDAR) continued simultaneously introducing resonant initiatives. At the same time, sectoral and/or politically neutral draft laws are registered by opposition and pro-power MPs.
Read full report: Law-making activeness of the VRU in May 2013