The Verkhovna Rada has put the draft law No. 4370-1 on amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On Civil Service” (to regulate a number of issues related to the civil service) submitted by MP Artur Herasymov (representative of the President in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine) on the agenda and is considering it.

This draft law provides for a mechanism for the President to usurp the power by changing the procedure of election of heads of local state administrations (LSA).

According to Article 118 of the Constitution of Ukraine, heads of local state administrations are appointed by the President upon the recommendation of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. Thus, the Government shall choose the candidates to these offices in line with the formal procedure and introduce them to the President.

According to the Law “On Civil Service”, preliminary selection of heads of local state administrations is conducted in the form of open competition by the Commission for the Senior Civil Service which includes representatives of both the Cabinet of Ministers, and the President.

The Government recommends that the winner of the competition be appointed by the President. Then the President either appoints this candidate to the office or dismisses him/her substantiating his decision. If the President does not support the candidate, the competition is conducted once again. This model conforms to the Constitution.

Moreover, most MPs from the specialized parliamentary committee, as well as public experts endorse another draft law on considering the heads of district state administrations as government officials of category “B”, which introduces a simpler mechanism of competitive selection of candidates to these offices – by the commissions set up under the oblast state administrations.

The draft law No. 4370-1 offers another alternative: according to it, the competition for the posts of heads of local state administrations shall be conducted by an ad hoc commission under the President’s Administration. This commission selects one candidate and formally introduces him or her to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, so that the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine made a recommendation back to the President. This downplays the constitutional role of the Cabinet of Ministers in the appointment of heads of local executive bodies which, according to the Constitution, are accountable and subordinate to the higher executive bodies.

It directly contradicts the Constitution, which is confirmed by the conclusion of the Scientific Experts Office of the Verkhovna Rada. It contradicts the principle of the distribution of power in the parliamentary-presidential republics and might lead to the usurpation of power by the President. At the same time, the ultimate beneficiary of such a change is not even the President, who will not have time to tackle the personnel issues at the district level, but the employees of his Administration.

We call on the MPs to reject the draft law No. 4370-1.

We call on the President’s team not to push towards this draft law.

We call on the Ukrainian public and the international community to actively monitor consideration of this bill by the Verkhovna Rada, as it is a touchstone of our political leaders’ devotion to the ideals and principles of constitutionalism.