Improving legislative process quality is an urgent present-day need, in view of the necessity for carrying out a number of most pressing legal reforms in different areas of social life requiring optimization specifically of the legislative procedure.

1. List of Recommendations for the Conference
“The Role of the Parliament, the Head of State, the Government and the Public
in Improving Legislative Process Quality”
12.12.2017
Improving legislative process quality is an urgent present-day need, in view of the necessity
for carrying out a number of most pressing legal reforms in different areas of social life requiring
optimization specifically of the legislative procedure.
The problem of poor quality legislation is caused by the following factors:
 Lack of strategic vision of State policy formulation and implementation;
 Legislative spam (submission to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of too many draft
laws that contradict applicable laws, are imbalanced, and fail to attempt to address
problems, which makes their implementation impossible);
 Small role of the Secretariat of Verkhovna Rada in the legislative process;
 Low level of stakeholders’ involvement in the legislative process;
 Low level of observance of constitutional and statutory requirements in the course
of the Parliament’s legislative activities;
 Influence of non-legal factors on the expression of the Parliament’s will on some or
other laws that directly impacts the quality of the process itself as well as of the
resulting laws.
The described situation prevents laws from acting as tools for implementing State policies,
since they are not meant to resolve particular problems; this divests them of any practical
significance.
To address these problems, the European Parliament’s Mission led by Pat Cox proposed
The Roadmap on Internal Reform and Capacity Building for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
which presents recommendations that were subsequently approved by the Verkhovna Rada of
Ukraine Resolution of March 17, 2016.
To facilitate the implementation of the parliamentary reform, in October and November 2017
the USAID RADA Program conducted 5 discussions on reforming the VR of Ukraine (focusing on
interaction between legislative and executive branches, conduct of the Government Question Hour,
voting procedure problems, supporting documents, and system of parliamentary service) that
resulted in development of generalrecommendations with regard to the standpoints of allstakeholders.
Proposed measures for reforming the Ukrainian Parliament
In the legislative sphere:
- Ensure that the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine are brought in
compliance with the Constitution of Ukraine;
- In the course of legislative activities, fully take into account the legal positions of the
Constitutional Court of Ukraine on the legislative procedure, the content of laws, etc;
- Ensure that the necessary systemicamendments aimed at strengthening institutionalfilters to
counteract low-qualitylawmaking aremade to the Rules of Procedureof the Verkhovna Rada ofUkraine;
- Provide for comprehensive regulation, on the legislative level, of the status and types of
examination of draft laws;
- Official presentation of a draft law to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine should be preceded
by submission of White Papers that should inform the public of the purpose of the would-be bill,

2. the issues that the normative legal act is meant to address, and proposals on ways to resolve the
problem in question, with forecasts of the likely consequences;
- Regulate, as soon as possible, the special legal status of the employees of the Secretariat
of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, with consideration for their differentiation into civil servants,
Secretariat employees performing maintenance functions, and support service staff;
- Adopt a new Regulation on the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, with a
rational definition of its modernized structure and division of the functional workload between the
Secretariat’s units;
- Prepare and submit for consideration by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine a draft Law of
Ukraine “On Laws and Legislation,” recognizing it as an urgent one (in particular it should specify
unified requirements for design and structure of draft laws, ways in which they should set out
legal norms, etc).
In the organizational sphere:
- Ensure, in all cases, strict adherence by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to the procedures
established by the Constitution of Ukraine and the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of
Ukraine for consideration of draft laws by all entities involved in the legislative process;
- Avoid cases of simplification of the legislative procedure (which can be used as an
exception), especially when considering system-generating and codified legislative acts;
- Strengthen the Parliament’s interaction in the legislative process with other holders of
the right to legislative initiative and with the public;
- Strengthen the influence of independent non-governmental organizations, prominent
legal scholars and other law experts on performance of legislative activities;
- Ensure the adoption and implementation of a comprehensive Human Resources Strategy
for the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;
- Strengthen the role of expert units of the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in
counteracting low-quality lawmaking by enhancing their human resources potential;
- Provide for the creation, in the near future, of a center for legislative initiatives under the
Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;
- Provide for the strengthening of the financial capacity of the Secretariat of the Verkhovna
Rada of Ukraine;
- Facilitate periodic monitoring of the state of implementation of the Pat Cox Mission’s
recommendations on ways to optimize the legislative process.