Today, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the draft law No. 3700 “On amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On election of the Members of Ukrainian Parliament” (regarding exclusion of the candidates in the parliamentary election from the voting list in a multi-mandate electoral district) in violation of the Rules of Procedure and all the legitimate procedures. As the experts of the Reanimation Package of Reforms civil platform have warned, this draft law allows to change the voting list after the election. This law actually establishes dictatorship of party leaders which has nothing to do with the notion of party discipline in the European perception. Most importantly, it downplays the value of citizens’ votes, as the list they voted for can be changed – candidates running in the parliamentary election can be excluded from the list before they take oath of office.

Even in the times of the die-hard Yanukovych presidency, politicians did not take the liberty to defy the citizens’ votes. Therefore, we call on: 

1. The President of Ukraine to immediately impose a veto on this law;
2. The MPs to request the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to give its opinion on whether this law complies with the provisions of the Fundamental Law;
3. The MPs – members of the Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to address the Venice Commission with a request to give its opinion on whether this law complies the European standards of parliamentarism;
4. If the draft law is not rejected, we call on the voters of Ukraine not to forget the political parties that have defied the citizens’ votes and put them beneath the interests of party leaders and sponsors. Here is the list of political parties and groups whose members have defied their supporters, having voted for the draft law No. 3700:

• the Petro Poroshenko Bloc (87 votes out of 136),
• the People’s Front (58 out of 81),
• the Opposition Bloc (25 out of 43),
• the All-Ukrainian Union “Samopomich” (22 out of 25),
• the Radical Party of Oleh Liashko (15 out of 21),
• the Volia Narodu group (9 out of 20),
• the All-Ukrainian Union “Batkivshchyna” (9 out of 19),
• the All-Ukrainian Union “Svoboda” (5 out of 5).

Faithfully yours,

the Reanimation Package of Reforms civil platform