After a five-week vacation, parliament gathered on Jan. 26 and began passing crucial legislation.
In three days, parliament passed a law that allows nationwide binding referendums and supported, in the first reading, a draft law stripping the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) of its power to investigate white-collar crime and corruption.
However, the parliament refused to confirm Yuriy Vitrenko as Ukraine’s new energy minister.
Lawmakers are now set to vote on a judicial reform bill that has been lambasted by legal experts and anti-corruption activists.
Binding referendum
President Volodymyr Zelensky has long been a vocal supporter of direct democracy. He even held a nonbinding opinion poll, labeled as a referendum, during the October local elections.
In October, Zelensky’s critics panned him for promoting an opinion poll to get out the vote. Now, the president will have the power to initiate actual referendums.
On Jan. 26, the referendum law got 255 votes, mostly from Zelensky’s 246-member Servant of the People faction.
The law specifies the range of issues that can be put up for a nationwide referendum, including amendments to several sections of the Constitution, changes to the territory of Ukraine, “issues of national importance” and the repeal of laws or specific provisions.
A referendum can be initiated by the president, by parliament, or by Ukrainians themselves.
To launch a referendum, a group of at least 60 Ukrainians has to collect the signatures of at least 3 million people in at least two-thirds of Ukraine’s oblasts, with at least 100,000 signatures in each. A referendum will be legitimate if at least 50% of Ukrainians above the age of 18 participate in it.
Ineligible issues are ones that contradict international law, the Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and its protocols.
While referendums about “changes to the territory of Ukraine” are allowed, questions that “aim to violate the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” as well as its “independence and national security” are banned.
SBU reform
On Jan. 28, parliament voted to move forward with long-awaited reform of the SBU.
The bill, supported by 285 lawmakers in the first reading, would remove the SBU’s right to investigate economic crimes and eliminate all of its investigative powers by 2024.
The SBU reform bill would also cut the number of SBU employees from 27,000 to 25,000 immediately and to 17,000 by 2023.
Ukraine’s Western partners have demanded this legislation, which is expected to bring the country closer to NATO standards.
Parliament also passed a separate law creating the Economic Security Bureau, which will now investigate economic crimes instead of the tainted tax police.
The SBU reform bill will now be forwarded to the parliament’s national security and defense committee and await a final vote. The Economic Security Bureau law awaits the president’s signature.
The bureau’s head will be chosen via competition.
The vacant ministry
While the parliament was actively voting for reforms, it voted against Vitrenko’s confirmation as the minister of energy.
Deputy Energy Minister Vitrenko received only 204 votes out of the required 226 votes to become energy minister and deputy prime minister on Jan. 28.
This is the second time that Vitrenko’s candidacy was rejected by parliament.
On Dec. 17, Vitrenko also failed to receive the required number of votes. Only 186 lawmakers supported his nomination then. Four days later, Vitrenko was appointed deputy energy minister by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. As a result, Vitrenko became the acting energy minister.
According to new legislation, he was permitted to hold the position of acting head for no longer than one month.
Previously, Vitrenko served as one of the top-managers of the state-owned Naftogaz gas monopoly and spearheaded the company’s successful litigation against Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom. Naftogaz secured a $2.9 billion arbitration award in a dispute over fees for transporting Russian gas through Ukraine’s pipelines.
Judicial anti-reform
Parliament is also scheduled to vote on a judicial reform bill. Unlike the widely supported SBU legislation, this bill has been lambasted by judicial watchdogs.
Parliament’s legal policy committee supported the so-called reform on Jan. 27.
The bill gives the High Council of Justice, the judiciary’s main governing body, full control over the selection of candidates for another judiciary body, the High Qualification Commission, and nullifies the role of foreign experts in the process.
The High Council of Justice has been discredited due to numerous corruption scandals and its appointment of tainted judges.
In September, the High Council of Justice unanimously refused to suspend notorious judge Pavlo Vovk, head of the Kyiv District Administrative Court, who faces charges of organized crime, abuse of power, bribery and unlawful interference with government officials. Vovk denies the accusations.
The council’s members are also implicated in the Vovk case. In wiretapped conversations released by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, Vovk mentioned the involvement of Andrii Ovsiienko, head of the High Council of Justice, in his alleged bargains with the council. He didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Judicial experts argue that the bill contradicts Ukraine’s commitments to its foreign partners.
