Election Oversight Needs Legal Framework

“To date, over 7000 civic organizations uniting about five million Ukrainians cannot exercise effective control over how officials abide by the Constitution and laws. To put it simply, there are no mechanisms for public control,” Chairman of the Public Control NGO Vasyl Volha declared, addressing a round table.

It is no secret that in most of the European countries civic organizations oversee the executive and initiate new laws, acting as watchdogs to prevent officials from abusing their office. By contrast, aided by the legal illiteracy and political apathy of most Ukrainians, the authorities are out of public control. Such a situation provides a breeding ground for bribery, red tape, abuse of office, disregard of central executive decisions by local officials, etc. Chairman of the reformed Liberal Party Pavlo Vialov even cited a number of characteristic symptoms of this increasingly widespread illness afflicting Ukrainian officials. Once elected to office, “Our officials quickly forget that they have in fact been hired by the people.” Later, “Intoxicated by benefits, dachas, etc., they become real criminals.” Thus, the leading Liberal sums up, public control over officials is vitally needed.

According to Mr. Volha, the enactment of the bill On Public Oversight submitted to lawmakers by the SDPU(o) will make it possible to at least partially rectify the situation. The bill proposes not only vesting the existing numerous public organizations, associations, and unions with oversight functions, but also to clearly define their rights and mode of relations with the executive, something that will hopefully provide the public with some leverage over officials.

On its way to the legislature, the bill was examined by public servants with the result that its wording has been substantially changed. Specifically, as Volha told The Day, the original “to influence official bodies” (an ordinary thing in most civilized countries) has been replaced with more timid “to monitor.” Another important novelty was that NGOs in order to be registered have to collect 3 million signatures of Ukrainian citizens within one year, including 100,000 in more than two-thirds of the country’s oblasts, instead of dropping any numerical requirements at all. According to First Vice President of the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Enterprisers Oleh Sukhorukov, “This will not only increase the effectiveness of private organizations but also reorient everything they have achieved.”

The initiators of the bill, however, agree that the document still needs substantial work. “Anyone can join in improving the bill. Definitely, the bill is not devoid of some misconceptions. Perhaps we will create a work group to finalize it,” SDPU(o) executive committee head Mykola Shevchenko told The Day. “Most important is to start making the improvements and bring the process to the end,” he stressed.

But the reported close links of the heads of our supposedly non- governmental organizations with the authorities raise many more public concerns.