Vision of Ukraine – 2030. What should be the system of political organization?
In the summer of 2022, the CPLR team, as part of the public coalition «Ukraine after Victory», formulated a vision «Vision of Ukraine – 2030». The document offers key conditions for the reconstruction and development of Ukraine after the Victory. Here we share how we see the system of political organization in Ukraine.
How do we imagine Ukraine in 2030?
There are all-national political parties in Ukraine, which differ from each other not only in the name of the leader or oligarch financing it, but first of all in the vision and principles of the country’s development strategy; they actively discuss them with the society and consistently fight for their implementation, being represented in the Parliament and the Government. Each party has an authoritative, professional, and active shadow government, whose members become members of the Cabinet of Ministers when the party enters the parliamentary majority. In their activities, the parties rely on an extensive network of public organisations, institutions, and foundations. Citizens understand the importance of political parties for the life of the society, participate in them, actively support them, including by monetary contributions, in particular, due to the right to independently determine the percentage of the tax amount which is sent to support a particular political party. The legislation guarantees intra-party democracy, transparency and state funding of the activity of parliamentary factions of political parties, as well as actual accountability of party finances.
In Ukraine, fair and democratic all-national, regional, and local elections take place. The legislation governing election administration meets international standards, is high quality and stable. Elections to the Parliament are held according to the proportional system in regional constituencies with preferences, and to community councils, according to the majority system in multi-mandate constituencies (Proposal: the proportional system in large cities). In the elections of councils of regional level, these electoral systems are combined in a 50:50 ratio.
The Verkhovna Rada remains a unicameral parliament, which forms the Government and interacts effectively with it and the ministries in the legislative process, generating high-quality and far-sighted laws. The Government is responsible before, accountable to and controlled by the Parliament. Parliamentary control over the activities of executive bodies is exercised, first of all, by law enforcement agencies, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and security and intelligence agencies. The parliamentary majority and the opposition mutually respect each other and interact when the issue of national interest is resolved.
The deputy mandate is free. Members of Parliament have a limited level of functional immunity, which makes them independent and protects them from arbitrary political persecution. Due to their selfless service to the interests of Ukraine and the triumph of justice, the people’s deputies are ahead of the representatives of the Armed Forces, churches, and public organisations in the ratings of trust.
The right of legislative initiative belongs only to the Government, the President and factions or groups in Parliament.
The powerful analytical capacity of the parliamentary apparatus guarantees high-quality expertise at all stages of preparation, consideration and adoption of laws and other parliamentary decisions. At the same time, there is no Institute of the legislation within its structure or with it.
What key changes need to be made to achieve this goal?
Following the constitutional reform described in the previous section, the Electoral Code has been improved, with the increased codification and democratic character of electoral procedures.
Parliamentary reform is being implemented based on the recommendations of the Pete Cox Commission. The main attention is paid to establishing effective interaction of parliamentary committees with the directorates of ministries, people’s deputies with the members of the Government in the process of forming state policy and passing the laws (the legislative process “from beginning to end”).
What red lines cannot be crossed in this area?
- Formation and activity of anti-Ukrainian political parties, whose program goals are aimed at violating the sovereignty or territorial integrity of Ukraine, undermining the national security.
- Return to the majority electoral system in the parliamentary elections, amending the electoral legislation for each election.
- Violation of the constitutional terms and conditions of parliamentary elections, arbitrary dissolution of Parliament.
- Weakening the role and place of the Parliament in the mechanism of checks and balances in favour of the President of Ukraine or executive bodies.
- Strengthening the imperative mandate, including the control of parliamentary faction leaders over people’s deputies.
- Restriction of the rights of opposition factions in the Parliament.