The
status of political reform still remains questionable, as PACE’s monitoring
co-rapporteurs Hanne Severinsen and Renate Wohlwend note in their report following their
fact-finding visit to Ukraine (9-12 October 2006.
“Although
no political force in today's context challenges the conversion from the
presidential-parliamentary system to a more parliamentary system in principle –
provided they get a fair share of the ruling power –, the limits and
irreversibility of the reform are still a constant source of conflict and
confusion. In fact, since the constitutional reform entered into force before
all necessary legal norms were harmonised or even adapted, the political and
legal collision has been inevitable. Also, from the very beginning, the central
issue at stake in this reform has not been the "balance of power" but
the "control of power". Now that Our Ukraine has left the government
coalition, the tug of war for more power in the PM-Parliament-President
triangle is likely to continue to increase. All of them claim to have prepared
and be about to submit dozens of petitions to the Constitutional Court,
including different challenges to the political reform.
It
is evident that Ukraine cannot move ahead with any serious reform project as
long as it does not resolve its constitutional crisis. As was shown in 2006,
the constitutional question directly influences domestic policies (relations
between parliament and president), economics (relations between government and
the president) and foreign policy (most vividly seen in the recent parliament's
dismissal of the foreign minister). If the political leaders do not reach a
consensus on the political reform upon the agreed basis of dvovladdia in the
forthcoming months, the risk is that the high stakes of the 2009 presidential
elections may soon swing the political pendulum towards a more centralised
power again. That, however, would mean that the vested interests of small
circles of individuals in power positions are likely to lead the country into
further stagnation,” the informational note says.
PACE
co-rapporteurs advise Ukraine’s power that regardless of the legitimate right
for the new government wishing to pursue the reforms according to its own
vision and agenda, a mature Cabinet of Ministers should not discard the reform
projects launched over the past 18 months that serve the same final goal. “To
this end, we would wish to see efforts towards the fulfilment of the Action
Plan for the Honouring by Ukraine of its Obligations and Commitments to the
Council of Europe, adopted by President Yushchenko in January 2006, stepped up
and consolidated. We welcome the new strategies of the reform of the judiciary,
criminal justice, fight against corruption worked out under the previous
government; and we expect to see those concepts further elaborated and new
draft laws to be submitted to Parliament without delay,” the document says.
Analyzing
other reforms under consideration, PACE notes that the reform of the legal
system should be continued in line with Council of Europe standards by the
completion of the judicial reform; adoption of a new law on the Bar (one of
Ukraine's original commitments when it became a CE member state); reform of the
prosecutorial service, bodies of the interior, security service and other law
enforcement agencies; reform of the substantive and procedural criminal law;
creation of an effective free legal aid system.
Administrative
reform is still unfinished and requires, inter alia, the adoption of a new law
on civil service and the law on ministries and other central bodies of the
executive which would clearly separate political offices and public
administration. However, more than new regulations, the administrative reform
efforts should aim at reducing the excessive and top-down heavy bureaucracy
that the Ukrainian public administration has inherited from Soviet times and at
introducing modern principles of accountability, transparency and
professionalism into its public service.
The
system of broadcast and print media requires deep transformation through the
set-up of a public broadcasting service on the basis of the state television
and radio companies and privatisation of print outlets (co-)founded by state or
local self-government authorities. The current legal framework guaranteeing
access to information has to be changed to offer more efficient mechanisms of
state authorities' accountability. The governmental draft law on the
transparency of media ownership recently submitted to the parliament has to be
adopted and properly enforced.
There
has been much speculation over Ukraine's foreign policy orientations, its
future European integration and Euro-Atlantic, as opposed to multi-vector,
aspirations since the coming into power of the government in August 2006. It
will take some time for Ukraine to fully develop a national consensus on which
direction the country wants to take. We believe that as that choice emerges, it
will be one for Europe and closer integration with the West, while obviously
preserving its important cultural, human, economic and even political links
with Russia.
“However,
we are convinced that Ukraine's greatest challenge today is not its integration
with the West, but the integration of Ukraine,” Hanne Severinsen and Renate
Wohlwend summed up.
