The working group has considered on today's meeting amendments, which concern the formation of district and territorial election commissions. The information was provided by representatives of Civil Network OPORA, who attended the meeting.
On May 14, the official working group held its third meeting, dedicated to consideration of amendments to the Election Code. It was attended by 6 MPs: Olena Boiko, Yurii Derev’ianko, Ostap Yednak, Nataliia Novak, Ihor Popov, and Ruslan Sydorovych, who chaired the meeting. Besides that, there were also a member of the working group Viktor Zalizniuk, who had co-drafted another version of the Code, assistants to MPs and civic activists.
On today's meeting, the group has considered amendments from 434 to 496, covering the formation of district and territorial election commissions. It was the first time they tried to consider the amendments based on the topic, but not in consecutive order. Thus, the first 100 articles of the Election Code were considered on three meetings of the official working group and two meetings of committee's sub-group.
According to Legal Advisor of the Civil Network OPORA Olha Kotsiuruba, the most important result of the discussion was the approval of amendments concerning the inclusion of one representative from each political party, represented by factions in current convocation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to the membership of district and territorial election commissions (draft Election Code, which was adopted in the first reading, didn't contain such regulation for territorial election commissions in local elections). Besides that, an important amendment was approved, regulating a collision in UTCs, which comprise two raions. In particular, the legislation didn't determine a nominating entity for the submission of candidates for members of territorial election commissions. According to the proposition, the candidates shall be nominated by a raion party cell, which is registered in a raion where an administrative center of a united territorial community is located. If there is no raion party cell, the candidates shall be submitted by a managing body of a political party.
The next meeting of the working group is scheduled for Friday, 18 May, at 2:00 PM.
We would like to remind that this working group doesn't have a regulation for its activities and, therefore, there is no quorum or voting. However, it is important that each member attends the meetings, to consider all 4400 as soon as possible and further the consideration of Election Code.
Based on the consideration results, the working group will provide its recommendations to the VRU Committee on Judicial Policy and Justice. The Committee, for its part, will consider on its meeting the recommendations and give its opinion on the draft Election Code for the second reading in Parliament.
It should be mentioned, that 251 amendments were considered by the group of Sub-committee on Elections and Referendums of the VRU Committee on Judicial Policy and Justice. The previous consideration of amendments in this group started on 21 December. On 28 February, VRU Committee on Judicial Policy and Justice had approved the working group to prepare draft Election Code of Ukraine for the second reading (#3112-1). On the second meeting, held on 4 April, the membership of this official working group was approved. It has 24 persons, including 22 current MPs and two experts, who participated in the development of other draft Election Codes.