Parties, Parliamentary Opposition, And Majority in One Package

In a letter to Verkhovna Rada, President Leonid Kuchma is urging lawmakers to pass the laws On Political Parties of Ukraine and On the Parliamentary Majority and Parliamentary Opposition in a package, the head of state’s press service reported last Thursday. The President notes that parliament has been working for over four years on the bill On Political Parties of Ukraine, “the most important document for strengthening the democratic foundations of Ukraine’s development and building a civil society in the state.” Passage of this law, the President recalled, is one of the commitments Ukraine undertook when entering the Council of Europe. Mr. Kuchma thinks that this document has taken an unduly long time to draw up. This can be partly explained by the fact that the bill’s original version had a number of defects that the parliament has tried to rectify. However, the draft submitted to the president for signature also required basic correction, which caused him to put forward some relevant proposals. Unfortunately, the letter says, the most important of them, aimed at encouraging and reinforcing political parties, were not taken into account by the people’s deputies.

The president also notes a similar situation with the bill On the Parliamentary Majority and Parliamentary Opposition, which is to lay down the basic legal principles of formation and functioning, as well as the rights and duties, of the legislative majority and opposition. In spite of this bill having been put forward by the head of state in pursuance to the decisions of the nationwide referendum and defined as a top priority, it was not even put on the agenda of the current parliamentary session, Pres. Kuchma emphasizes. With this in view, he draws the deputies’ attention to a “basic necessity” to consider and pass the two bills in a package because party and parliamentary activities are inseparable. Simultaneously, since these bills do not cover all legal aspects of the status, rights, duties of, and guarantees for the political opposition in Ukraine, the president deems it necessary to adopt a separate law on political opposition, Interfax- Ukraine reports.

Commenting on the presidential message, First Deputy Chairman of Verkhovna Rada Viktor Medvedchuk called on the parliament to speed up the discussion of both bills, saying that the head of state had shown “readiness to cooperate with parliament, above all, in what concerns the passage of laws aimed at improving the political system of Ukraine.”

Mr. Medvedchuk announced that the Special Ad Hoc Commission for Drafting Legislative Acts in the Area of Political, Legal and Administrative Reforms is completing work on the law On Political Parties in Ukraine and is prepared to submit this document for lawmakers’ consideration. The first vice speaker said some deputies, especially those representing small opposition parties, had expressed reservations about this law, including disagreement with the president’s proposal to reregister parties.

He also noted that members of the ad hoc parliamentary commission, represented by all political factions of Verkhovna Rada, “have expressed not a single proposal contrary to the wishes of all sides in the process.” Mr. Medvedchuk is convinced that the text of the law On Political Parties will be agreed upon with the president and passed in general before the end of the seventh session.

The first vice speaker shares the opinion that the head of state expressed in his message, that the activity of parties and parliament are inseparable. He also thinks the law On Political Parties in Ukraine should be passed together with On the Parliamentary Majority and Parliamentary Opposition. He said this “would promote implementation of the results of the April 2000, nationwide publicly initiated referendum and the formation of a viable multiparty majority after Verkhovna Rada elections in 2002... This majority should be permanent, not situational, and aimed at defending the public interest... It should form the government and bear joint responsibility for the transformations in and the viability of our society.”

He also supported the head of state’s opinion about working out a separate law on the political opposition. Mr. Medvedchuk is certain that the absence of this document precludes “assessing opposition actions in legal terms” and jeopardizes civil peace in Ukraine, “as recent events in the streets of Kyiv have shown.”