Oleksandr LAVRYNOVYCH: There will perhaps be a dozen fewer parties
“How will the checking be carried out”?
“All political parties must submit documents in line with the Law on Political Parties to the Ministry of Justice. The law sets out that the package of documents should include the political party’s constitution (with a mandatory duly-filled questionnaire), a program, and information on the organizational structure. Then the Ministry of Justice carries out registration and supervision”.
“What risk will the parties run if they fail, for some reason, to report in time, also taking into account that only the Supreme Court is authorized to ban a political party”?
“The parties had more than a year to prepare all the documents. So if somebody fails to do it by April, he will not need to hurry any more. Yet, as the legally-established deadline approaches, I will again send a reminder to all political parties without exception. Those who will not present the required information will be the first to be checked for compliance with the law. In case of non-compliance, the Ministry of Justice will have to request the Supreme Court of Ukraine to nullify the political party’s registration certificate. The abrogation of this certificate will in turn mean that the party will no longer exist legally in Ukraine. However, this kind of actions should not be viewed as banning. A political party can only be banned — even if it has branches in different administrative and territorial units in Ukraine, and its statutory documents fully comply with the law — for anti-constitutional activities, attempts to violently overthrow the governmental system, stirring up ethnic conflicts, and things like that. I say it again: we will announce publicly and in good time which parties will be inspected”.
“If parties are to be inspected selectively, will you be taking into account the results of the parliamentary elections”?
“The results of the Verkhovna Rada elections will be taken into account. I repeat that we have the following criteria: those who deemed it impossible or unnecessary to bring their documents into line with the law will be checked first along with those parties that were unavailable at the registered address”.
“According to the Ministry of Justice, only 27 Ukrainian parties have regional branches. What is in store for the entities that exist, as you said yourself, ‘on paper only’”?
“What we have so far is preliminary information. It is possible that some political parties have already duly registered their regional, district and city branches in the past few months, and the true picture is somewhat different”.
“To what extent do you think the number of political parties in Ukraine can diminish after the re- registration”?
“I never make such forecasts. Maybe, all 125 registered parties and another one, whose documents we are now reviewing, will prove that they unconditionally obey the law, and not a single party will be ‘cut down’. Or, maybe, there will be a dozen”.
“What is the estimated cost of this procedure”?
“This will cost the state nothing. As to the parties, their leaders will decide how much they are going to pay those who work on their documents to bring them in line with the law. The parties may decide to use funds provided by their sponsors and supporters”.
“And, finally, a pressing ‘off- the-point’ question. You said the other day in The Right One television program that you are sure the FATF will soon lift the sanctions it imposed against Ukraine. What makes you so optimistic”?
“I said we have already taken some steps to bring our legislation fully into line with this organization’s demands. So there are no legal grounds to renew the sanctions. Even if some grounds do exist, they are of no legislative nature. If the FATF only wants our standard-setting instruments to comply with its requirements, it will have no grounds to renew the sanctions”.
