The Central Election Commission is ready to realize draft law #6240 on Amendment of Some Laws of Ukraine (concerning the voting rights of internally displaced persons and other internal mobile groups of citizens) if the Verkhovna Rada adopts it. Such statement was made by Deputy Head of the CEC Yevhen Radchenko on 13 November press-conference.
According to him, Ukrainian legislation should be amended to simplify the registration procedure for IDPs.
“There is a draft law #6240 in the Parliament, which can settle the situation. The Central Election Commission is ready to realize it, if it will be adopted,” – Mr. Radchenko said.
We would like to remind that draft Law of Ukraine on Making Amendments to Some Laws of Ukraine (concerning electoral rights of internally displaced persons and other internal mobile citizen groups) was registered in the Parliament on 27 March 2017 under #6240.
The draft law was developed by experts of the Civil Network OPORA AUNGO, Hrupa Vplyvu Civil Holding NGO, International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), MPs of Ukraine, and with participation of representatives from NGOs Donbass SOS, Human Rights Information Center, Crimea SOS, the Right for Protection Charitable Foundation, and East-SOS Charitable Fund. Besides that, members of the Interdepartmental Working Group on improvement of IDPs human rights legislation under the Ministry of Temporarily Occupied Territories and IDPs Affairs (including representatives of UN Refugee Agency and the Council of Europe) also participated in discussion of the draft law.
24 MPs have put their signatures under the draft law, namely Hryhorii Nemyria, Mustafa Naiiem, Svitlana Zalishchuk, Refat Chubarov, Mustafa Dzhemiliev, Ostap Yednak, Hanna Hopko and others. There are both unaffiliated and faction representatives among co-authors of the bill: Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction – 11 MPs, People's Front – 2, AUU Batkivshchyna – 3, Opposition Bloc –2, Radical Party of Oleh Liashko – 1, Samopomich –1, unaffiliated or non-group – 4. Thus, the bill has more chances to be adopted since it is already widely supported by MPs. It should be mentioned, that regional representation of MPs who signed it is also quite wide: city of Kyiv, Donetsk, Lviv, Zakarpattia, Chernihiv, Vinnytsia, Rivne, Cherkasy oblasts and the AR of Crimea.
In April 2017, the Central Scientific Experts Office (CSEO) approved the approach, suggested by NGO experts this draft law, concerning the registration of voting address based on the factual residence address. In June, the VRU Committee on Human Rights, National Minorities and International Relations recommended the VRU Committee on Judicial Policy to facilitate the consideration of draft law #6240 and recommend the Parliament to take it as a basis after the first reading. In September, the Anti-Corruption Committee confirmed that the draft law is in line with anti-corruption legislation. However, it hadn't been submitted for consideration of the main Committee on Judicial Policy and Justice for over a year.
In July 2018, the draft law has included in agenda of the Committee on Judicial Policy and Justice for the first time, but the meeting lacked a quorum. Despite the draft law was included in agenda of the Committee for more 6 times, there was not enough MPs attending for its consideration.