NGO presents figures that demonstrate efficiency of cooperation between the Cabinet of Ministers and the Parliament in law-making over the past year.
Each fifth draft law proposed by the government is passed into a law. The figure comes as a result of the research set to evaluate cooperation between the government chaired by Volodymyr Groysman and the Parliament (Verkhovna Rada). The research covers the period between April 2016 and March 2017. “Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine supported only 18,5 per cent of the draft laws proposed by the government. Cabinet of Ministers introduced 261 draft laws, 50 of them were passed into laws and 16 draft laws were adopted in the first reading,” said Oleksii Koshel, director general of the NGO Committee of Voters of Ukraine.
Part of the draft laws are formal and are the result of lobbying, part of the draft laws are adopted due to the pressure. Government’s draft laws were mostly supported by “Narodnyi Front” faction – 79 per cent of the faction’s MPs cast their votes, and by the “Bloc Petro Poroshenko” faction – 73 per cent. “The draft laws are mostly voted for by the former coalition. ‘Samopomich’ faction that claims being the opposition supports governmental draft laws with 65 per cent of the faction’s votes. Governmental draft laws are supported by sixty per cent of MPs from Oleh Liashko’s ‘Radical Party’ faction, 50 per cent of ‘Batkivshchyna’ party that is in complete opposition. Factions that give least support to law-making initiative of the government are ‘Volia Narodu’ – 36 per cent, ‘Vidrodzhennia’ – 27 per cent and ‘Opposition Bloc’ with only 19 per cent,” Oleksiy Koshel noted.
The Ministers whose cooperation with the Parliament is most efficient are: the Minister for Regional Development, Building and Housing Hennadii Zubko, the Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelian and the Minister of Ecology Ostap Semerak. “Zubko and Omelian are the ones to present the draft laws most often to the Parliament,” Koshel said. “Zubko has actually spoken in the Rada the highest number of times – 35,” the director general of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine said.
The Minister of Culture Yevhen Nyshchuk, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin, the Minister of Education and Science Lilia Hrynevych as well as the Minister of Defense Stepan Poltorak all have demonstrated results that attest for good work. The Parliament adopts an average of half of the draft laws worked out by the Foreign Affairs Ministry and one third of the draft laws submitted by the Ministry for Regional Development, Building and Housing (38 per cent), by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education (33 per cent) as well as by the Ministry of Defense (31 per cent).
Least successful in the ranking are the Minister for Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv as well as the Minister for Social Policy Andrii Reva. Only four draft laws out of the 32 proposed by the Ministry for Economic Development and Trade were passed into laws. Out of the 40 draft laws submitted by the Ministry for Social Policy only four translated into laws.
Analyst of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine Denys Rybachok named three main criteria the NGO applied when evaluating the ministers’ work. They include ministers’ participation in the parliamentary sessions within the so-called “hour-long round of questions to the government”, participation in the work of parliamentary committees as well as personal presentation of the draft laws at plenary sessions in the Verkhovna Rada. “Starting from April 2016 Hennadii Zubko spoke in the Parliament when presenting 14 draft laws, Volodymyr Omeiyan – 13, Ostan Semerak – 7,” elaborated the analyst.
The MPs address their inquiries most frequently to the Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov, acting Healthcare Minister Ulana Suprun and the Minister of Finance Oleksandr Danyliuk. “Starting from April 2016 MPs filed 195 inquiries to the Minister of Interior, 114 to the acting Minister of Healthcare and 109 to the Minister of Finance,” Denys Rybachok noted. The analyst of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine explained this trend by the complexity of issues within the area of responsibility of these ministries. There has always been a high number of inquiries to law enforcement agencies, the expert added.
