Ukraine parliament sends seven bills to Constitutional Court

Ukraine’s parliament voted on Sept. 3 to submit seven
bills to amend the Constitution to the Constitutional Court for review. They
are legislation to: (1) reduce the number of MPs to 300 and conduct exclusively
proportional voting (eliminating single-mandate districts); (2) deprive
mandates from MPs who engage in absentee voting, MPs who are absent for at
least a third of general or committee sessions; and MPs who establish permanent
resident status outside of Ukraine; (3) create consultative, advisory and other
assisting bodies for the parliament; (4) enable the public to submit bills for
parliamentary review and vote; (5) granting the president the ability to create
state regulatory bodies, as well as appoint and dismiss the heads of the State
Bureau of Investigations (DBR) and National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU); (6)
eliminating lawyer monopolies; and (7) addressing parliamentary ombudsmen. Once
approved by the Constitutional Court, parliament should be able to vote to
approve the measures in February 2020, said on Sept. 3 Fedir Venislavskiy, the
president’s representative to the Constitutional Court.

President Zelensky’s intention to amend the
Constitution to allow him to create an unlimited number of regulatory bodies is
part of a plan to take control of practically all law enforcement structures,
MP Serhiy Rakhmanin of the Voice party told the Sept. 3 parliamentary session.
Also part of that plan, Rakhmanin said, is legislation submitted on Aug. 30
that would transfer control of the National Guard to the president and away
from the Internal Affairs Ministry. Meanwhile, the constitutional amendments
being proposed by the president’s parliamentary faction are unrelated to each
other, non-systemic, partially absurd and partially dangerous, he said.
Rakhmanin called for amending the Constitution to include a presidential
impeachment procedure, rather than the legislation currently being proposed.