On February 22, the Governmental Committee chaired by the First Vice Prime Minister Stepan Kubiv has supported overall the propositions from the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the National Police and Civil Network OPORA concerning the Draft Law of Ukraine on Making Amendments to Some Legislative Acts Aimed to Strengthen Liability for Violation of Electoral Legislation.

The legislative propositions were presented by the Deputy Minister of Internal Affair of Ukraine Tetiana Kovalchuk and Electoral and Parliamentary Programs Coordinator at Civil Network OPORA Olha Aivazovska.

“The electoral reforming also concerns the certainty of punishment for electoral rights violations. The initiative of civil society and representatives of law-enforcement bodies had different stages: from rapid response headquarters under the MIA on 2014 and 2015 elections, to the development of legislative initiative. Since 2014, OPORA had analyzed criminal cases, which concerned violations, and court decisions, and made a conclusion that the problem is in the legislative framework. Thus, after open discussions, conducted in 23 oblasts of Ukraine in 2016 and the city of Kyiv with participation of civil society, experts, electoral stakeholders, police and prosecution agency representatives, we had developed a draft law. After making the final modifications based on the results of consolidation conferences and official events, the draft law will be presented to the Government. We also hope for its support in the Parliament. The propositions will be sent for consideration of the Cabinet of Ministers and registered in the Parliament in the nearest future,”Olha Aivazovska informed.

We remind that representatives of the MIA, the National Police and Civil Network OPORA have jointly developed amendments to the criminal and administrative codes concerning the strengthening liability for violation of electoral legislation. We suggested to strengthen the liability for non-transparent financing of election campaigns, voter bribery, violation of the voting secrecy, organization of electoral crimes by civil servants etc.