During April 2013, MPs of Ukraine have drafted 405 bills and resolutions. MPs were mostly concerned with economic, financial issues, and administration (107 initiatives, or 26.42 % of all); law-enforcement system, justice, and fighting against corruption (86 initiatives, or 21.23 %); social issues and standards (60 initiatives, or 14.81 %). Similarly to previous months, security, defense, and foreign affairs concerned MPs for less than 1% in April. The Civil Network OPORA continues to watch and analyze law-making activities of MPs of Ukraine of VII convocation.
MPs of the largest opposition faction AUU Batkivshchyna have registered 131 legislative initiatives in April. Thus, they have restored leadership among the most active law-makers, which was taken by the Party of Regions during the last two months. MPs were independently working, without inter-faction collaboration, on the following issues: economics, finances, and administration (37 initiatives) as well as law-enforcement system, justice, and fighting against corruption (35). Social standards (17), politics and state administration (14), and humanitarian issues (12) were of the second topicality for MPs of the Batkivshchyna. Local self-government (7), introduction of holidays and memorable dates (6), health care and medicine (3) – are on the third place. None of draft laws or resolutions concerned security and defense, foreign policy and environment issues.
Initiatives regarding procedure for voluntary waiver of parliamentary immunity submitted by Yurii Odarchenko, and regarding criminalization of illegal visual observation of a person, including those during investigation, submitted by Hennadii Moskal and Vitalii Yarema, are potentially resonant draft laws. The latter was sharply criticized by some human rights activists, as long as such wording may be used against civil citizens, which record facts and incidents in public places.
In April, MPs from the Party of Regions have registered 120 draft laws and resolutions. Third part of these documents are draft resolutions, which initiate supporting, modifying, or repelling some draft laws submitted earlier. Above all, law-makers want to repeal draft laws which provide benefits for different sections of the population or are directed on social improvements (Yevhen Hellier and Yaroslav Sukhyi are authors of resolutions). 24 draft laws (33%) of 84 concern amendments to different codes: 12 draft amendments to the Tax Code, 5 to the Criminal Code, 4 to the Budget Code, and 7 to the other codes.
UDAR faction has drafted 24 legislative initiatives, including 14 draft laws and 10 draft resolutions. It is their best efficiency coefficient since the beginning of cadence in the Verkhovna Rada. Most of proposed projects (12 documents) concern issues of law-enforcement system, justice, and fighting against corruption. Initiatives concerning economic (3 documents) and public administration are on the second place. Humanitarian issues, similarly to previous months, were of minor importance for members of the UDAR faction
In April, MPs of the Communist Party of Ukraine have registered 14 legislative initiatives in the Parliament, including only one draft Law on Concessions, and the rest – draft resolutions. For today, only one draft law was submitted for consideration of the Parliament during the whole month, what is the lowest recorded efficiency coefficient of the CPU faction members during the whole period of their work in the VR of VII convocation. Most of documents initiated by the communists concerned administrative and economic issues (6 draft legislative acts), and social issues (also 6 documents), which were elaborated by Petro Tsybenko, as Head of the Committee on Social Policy and Labor, and Spiridon Kilinkarov, as Head of Committee on construction, city planning, and housing service.
In April, MPs of the Svoboda faction have registered 21 draft regulatory acts, particularly 14 draft laws and 7 draft resolutions. Third part of their legislative initiatives concerned financial, economic, and administrative issues. Social policy, environment issues, and introduction of holidays and memorable dates received little attention of the All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda faction members, which drafted 3 documents in each sector. During the last three months, members of the Svoboda faction were not interested in foreign affairs, as well as security and defense issues, at all.
In April 2013, non-faction MPs have independently registered 27 draft laws and resolutions (10 draft resolutions, 17 bills). MPs concentrated on political issues and state management (8 drafts), as well as social standards and guarantees (6 drafts).
When analyzing draft laws and resolutions registered by non-faction MPs, a certain isolation from activities in Parliamentary Committees is vividly seen. Most of these bills are individual initiatives of non-faction MPs, and are not based on wide discussion between representatives of different political forces.
In April 2013, representatives of different factions have jointly registered 69 draft laws and resolutions. Most of inter-faction bills concerned law-enforcement system, justice, and fighting against corruption (20 drafts). In particular, MPs of the Party of Regions, AUU Batkivshchyna, UDAR, and All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda, are promoting implementation of the EU-Ukraine Action Plan on visa liberalization, and especially bringing national anti-corruption and criminal legislation in accordance with international standards. At the same time, specialists of the Central Scientific Experts Office of the Verkhovna Rada advance serious remarks about these documents.
Humanitarian issues (16 documents) are on the second place by the number of inter-faction bills. MPs of different factions jointly work on language and education policy issues. Initiation of regulations which concern different aspects of religious organizations was prevailing this month. 8 draft laws concerned social issues and guaranties, 7 – economic issues, 6 – politics and state administration, 12 – other.
UDAR party has the best activeness coefficient, 78.57% members of which participated in the law-making process. Representatives of the Batkivshchyna faction, which have got 77.89% coefficient before May holidays, are almost as active as their colleagues in the opposition. The Communists (68.75%) and Svodoba members (66.67 %) have taken the second place with a little margin. At the same time, only half of the PRU members (51.21 %) participated in drafting and registration of legislative initiatives in April. Non-faction MPs are on the last place (40.63 %). OPORA took into consideration size of factions and law-making activeness of MPs in previous month.
The organization has also created the "law-maker of the month" activeness rating, including importance of draft law or resolution. Formalistic draft laws received the lowest points, and those establishing new regulation or improving old one – the highest number of points. Therefore, OPORA maximally ignored documents, which don't have any influence on the effective legislation. Besides that, when all faction members were indicated as authors of a bill, similarly to previous months, the organization divided the importance coefficient into the number of such "authors" in order to create accurate rating. Thus, the final list of MPs, which submitted draft initiatives, is the following: 1) Andrii Kozhemiakin, AUU Batkivshchyna (7.945 points); 2) Oleh Liashko, non-faction (5.25); 3) Vitalii Khomutynnik, the PRU (4.875); 4) Volodymyr Yavorivskyi, AUU Batkivshchyna (4.5); 5)Tetiana Sliuz, AUU Batkivshchyna (4.31).
The project is supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID.