Open Parliament

OPEN PARLIAMENT UKRAINE

VERKHOVNA RADA OF UKRAINE

Open Parliament: interim activity report on the initiative aimed at implementing The Action Plan of the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness February 5 – May 5, 2016

CHESNO

MEDIA LAW INSTITUTE

Open Parliament is an interna onal ini a ve coordinated by a correspondent working group on legisla ve openness that works on sharing the best prac ces of parliamentary openness in the scope of the Open Government Partnership ini a ve. The working group’s ac vity is based, among others, on the Declara on of Parliamentary Openness developed by parliamentary monitoring NGOs from the whole world. 160 parliamentary monitoring NGOs from 82 countries have already joined the Declara on of Parliamentary Openness.

On February 5, 2016 Ukraine joined the Declara on of Parliamentary Openness, and Volodymyr Hroysman, Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, signed a resolu on to adopt the Ac on Plan on implementa on of the Declara on of Parliamentary Openness. The key aim of the ini a ve is to provide greater transparency to the work of the Parliament, and to engage ci zens in parliamentary processes.

The Ac on Plan on implementa on of the Declara on of Parliamentary Openness has been developed

by Ukrainian parliamentary monitoring NGOs (OPORA, CHESNO, Transparency Interna onal Ukraine, Eidos*, and Media Law Ins tute) in coopera on with the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and with the support of the UN Development Program in Ukraine. The Ac on Plan consists of 20 commitments agreed upon by the Parliament and civil society in the following areas: 1) access to informa on; 2) civil society engagement in parliamentary processes; 3) accountability; and 4) technologies and innova ons.

Today the Open Parliament ini a ve in Ukraine includes MPs, representa ves of the Verkhovna Rada Administra on, interna onal and Ukrainian civil society organiza ons.

Thanks to the coopera on of MPs, CSOs, the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and other public bodies the first three months of the thorough work brought significant results to the Open Parliament Ini a ve. Special thanks go to the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada Administra on, par cularly to Volodymyr Slyshynskyi, Volodymyr Bondarenko, Mykola Shevchuk; Oleksandr Ryzhenko (Head of the State Agency on Electronic Governance in Ukraine); and Oleksii Sydorenko (Head of Department for Automated Systems of the Verkhovna Rada Administra on), who help implemen ng technically complicated, but important solu ons to provide more transparency to the parliamentary work, and be er access to informa on for average users.

* Eidos is a new name of the Centre for Poli cal Studies and Analysis

PUBLICITY OF MPS' INQUIRIES (sec on 1.2) Mps' inquiries are available for the Verkhovna Rada website visitors as scanned documents (4930 out of 8000 according to the Department for Automated Systems of the Verkhovna Rada Administra on), as well as related replies (2395, all of them are available). In the near future the control department (who administrates the resource) plans to make the remaining inquiries public (there is a delay due to the personal data processing).

That is how MP's inquiries and related replies look like on a page of an MP on the Verkhovna Rada website

PUBLICITY OF MPS' APPEALS (sec on 1.3) A mechanism has been developed to publicise MPs' appeals and related replies on the oďŹƒcial parliamentary website. Star ng from April 8, 2016 in case of agreement of an MP his / her automated work center on appeals will be ac vated, and all texts of his / her appeals will be available on the website.

That is how MP's appeals look like on his / her page on the Verkhovna Rada website

ACCESS TO INFORMATION ON WORK OF VERKHOVNA RADA COMMITTEES (sec

on 1.4)

Advocacy aimed at inclusion of the bill No. 1591 On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine Concerning Provision of Openness and Access to Informa on on Work of Verkhovna Rada, Its Commi ees and MPs to the Verkhovna Rada's agenda. Layers of the Media Law Ins tute par cipated in prepara on of hand-out materials clarifying the content of the bill for MPs. The bill is to be considered by the Parliament.

N 1591

Openness and accountability of the Parliament, its committees and MPs

Audio recording of committee meetings and publication of the records on the committee's website

Monthly reporting on MPs' housing rent and in-country travel

Publication of uncut texts of MPs' appeals and related replies on the Verkhovna Rada website

Publication of the budget of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine

Publication of minutes and verbatim of the Coordination Board

Monthly update of the list of assisting consultants and their status on the pages of MPs on the Verkhovna Rada website

Major innova ons of the bill that concerns provision of openness and access to informa on on the work of the Verkhovna Rada, its commi ees and MPs

INFORMATION ON BILLS (sec on 1.6) In February 2016 Vadym Hudyma, project manager of the Verkhovna Rada Open Data Portal, which is implemented by OPORA civil society network, provided his recommenda ons to the Verkhovna Rada Administra on regarding publica on of all stages of a bill passage, and since then each bill on the website of the Verkhovna Rada has its Passage sec on that contains the history and results of bills' passage.

Example of a bill passage sec on on the Verkhovna Rada website

OPENING INFORMATION ON UNETHICAL CONDUCT AND POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST (sec

on 1.7)

Advocacy aimed at inclusion of the bill No.1895 On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine on Penalty Inflic ng for Viola on of Personal Vo ng Rules to the Verkhovna Rada's agenda.

CHESNO civil movement has started a powerful informa on and awareness campaign for MPs regarding the threats that piano vo ng carries to the Parliament, and regarding the principles of the bill No. 1895.

– In fact, when there is a bill that the country needs, piano voting is a deed, – said Tetiana Chornovol, MP. – So you are ready to violate the Constitution, aren't you? – ascertained an activist of CHESNO. – When the country needs it, I'm ready to sacrifice everything: my life, my reputation, everything in the world, – added Ms Chornovol.

Quote from an interview with MP Te ana Chornovol on the causes of piano vo ng

N 1895

Effective sanctions for piano voting

Prohibition to occupy head positions in the Verkhovna Rada committees

Depriving of the right to participate in the Verkhovna Rada plenary meetings

Depriving of the right to participate in official delegations and business trips at the state budget account

Major innova ons of the bill that concerns penalty inic ng for viola on of personal vo ng rules CHESNO movement ac vists had MPs sign the pe on demanding the second reading of the bill No. 1895 that inicts penalty for piano vo ng, and sent each MP a le er with the claim to support this bill.

MANUAL ACCESS TO INFORMATION (sec on 2.3) On March 11, 2016 representa ves of OPORA civil society network met with Volodymyr Hroysman (Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine), and the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada Administra on to implement the commitment to create a working area where one can process the documents. Volodymyr Hroysman has ordered the Verkhovna Rada Administra on to provide the correspondent area. At this me it is important to make the aforemen oned informa on public and accessible for search engines.

Informa on on speciďŹ c working areas where one can work with publicly available informa on

DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF VERKHOVNA RADA MEDIA STRATEGY (sec

on 2.6)

Star ng from January 1, 2016 the law of Ukraine On Reforming State and Communal Printed Media came into force. The law provides for secession of public bodies from teams of printed media founders.

According to this law the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall arrange the reforming of Holos Ukrainy paper and Viche journal.

Aiming to discuss the key aspects of the Verkhovna Rada media strategy, the Media Law Ins tute has had a number of mee ngs with M. Shevchuk, Deputy Head of the Verkhovna Rada Administra on. Fulfilling the commitment to develop the parliamentary media strategy also means solving the issues related to reforming the printed media founded by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The Media Law Ins tute provided the Verkhovna Rada Administra on with the detailed clarifica ons of the law of Ukraine On Reforming State and Communal Printed Media and consulta ons on the mechanisms that the Verkhovna Rada can apply to arrange its secession from the team of founders of Holos Ukrainy and Viche.

– The Parliament will make a decision on the means of reforming Holos Ukrainy paper and Viche journal in the nearest time. Following one of the commitments of the Initiative's Action Plan the Media Law Institute has consulted the Verkhovna Rada Administration on the specifics of parliamentary media reforming. Note that in 2015 the state budget allocated over UAH 14 million for both media. Even though the reforming process will start the next year, they will not receive such a huge amount of financing this year, – Halyna Chyzyk, Media Law Institute expert

DISCLOSURE OF FINANCIAL PAPERS OF VERKHOVNA RADA ADMINISTRATION

(chapter 3)

OPORA civil society network has been repeatedly raising this issue. On March 27, 2013 OPORA addressed the Verkhovna Rada Administra on with a public informa on request. They asked for a copy of the detailed Administra on staff schedule including all departments, posi ons and salaries per each posi on. However, the response of the Head of the Verkhovna Rada Administra on as of April 4, 2013 was nega ve. The access to this informa on was denied due to the reason that the request considered an in-house document that cannot be made public. OPORA believes this denial violates the right for access to public informa on granted by the law of Ukraine On Access to Public Informa on as of January 13, 2011.

The same month OPORA civil society network turned to the District Administra ve Court of Kyiv with a lawsuit to determine the denial of the Verkhovna Rada Administra on as of April 4, 2013 illegal and to oblige it to provide a copy of the detailed Administra on staff schedule.

The staff schedule of the Verkhovna Rada Administra on is a document created in the process of the Parliament's and its departments' implementa on of powers s pulated by certain legisla ve acts. It is a property of the Verkhovna Rada Administra on, and it manages this informa on. Taking the aforemen oned into account, judges came to the reasonable conclusion to comply with the suit, as far as the staff members of the Verkhovna Rada Administra on receive their salaries from the state budget, and there is no personal data of duty holders in the staff schedule, therefore this informa on cannot be considered as the one with limited access.

The Order of the District Administra ve Court as of July 8, and Judgment of Kyiv Administra ve Court of Appeals as of September 24, 2013 fulfilled the demand of OPORA, and considered the denial of the Verkhovna Rada Administra on to provide the informa on unlawful. The Verkhovna Rada Administra on in return filed a cassa onal appeal. The Administra on stated that it disagreed with the first instance courts' viola on of the norms of substan ve and procedural law, which challenged the decision taken. The judicial panel of the Supreme Administra ve Court of Ukraine having checked the documents and judgments within this case declined the cassa onal appeal on February 9, 2016.

The courts' judgments remained unchanged. Thus, OPORA civil society network defended its legal right for access to public informa on through the court.

On March 18, 2016 the Monitoring Commi ee of the Open Parliament Ini a ve raised the issue of promulga ng the informa on on financial and economic ac vity in the searchable format. Both the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada and the Administra on leadership declared their willingness to open the data. Therefore, the staff schedule, and some financial informa on are public in the open data format at data.rada.gov.ua. Now inclusion of the names of the staff members is being nego ated.

The publicized data sets on the open data portal of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine

LINKING WITH OTHER INFORMATION PLATFORMS THAT CONTAIN INFORMATION ON PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY (sec

on 4.3)

On March 21 OPORA civil society network presented a pla orm rada4you.org that helps clarifying and analyzing whether MPs are consistent in their vo ng for bills on a certain topic (for example open data, visa libera ng bills, the President’s line etc.); whether an MP par cipates in plenary mee ngs regularly; or whether there is fac onal discipline. The pla orm contains informa on on vo ng of the Ukrainian Parliament of the VIII convoca on star ng from November 2014. All data there is gathered at the official portal of the Verkhovna Rada.

This resource is free of charge and has an open source code. All data is reusable. Using API everybody can access almost all informa on on They Vote for You website in JSON format: h ps://rada4you.org/help/data.

Ukrainian version of this interna onal project is possible due to dona ons of Na onal Democra c Ins tute (NDI). Website content and technical support in 2016 is carried out by USAID RADA: responsible accountable democra c assembly programme, implemented by East Europe Founda on.

– They Vote for You helps not to get lost in the massive amount of data and links the bills that are important for people; that are related to reforms and that form the country's development agenda. They are linked in thema c groups, the so-called “policies”. With the help of this pla orm one can see the real MP's posi on that is based not on his / her words, but on specific deeds; one can analyze the MP's discipline in fulfilling his / her commitments, and detect an unexpected connec on between posi ons of MPs from different par es, – Nadiia Babynska, OPORA civil society network expert

A page of an MP on the website rada4you.org

On March 27 AppStore published an app called Zakonoproekt developed by CHESNO. The app completes the informa on on passing bills that is published on the Verkhovna Rada website. With this app users will promptly receive updates on changes of the bills' status, and on new legisla ve ini a ves related to the topics they are interested in.

– The Verkhovna Rada of the VIII convoca on has got a legisla ve rush. Only in 2015 they introduced 4780 bills. If you don't want the changes in legisla on to take you by surprise, you should keep an eye on passing the bills. It is important because you want the changes to become an opportunity, but not a problem for you and Ukraine, – Andrii Kruhlashov, coordinator of CHESNO movement.

The applica on allows filtering bills by commi ees and ini ators; it allows keeping close track on changes in the bills. Users will receive the informa on on the status of the chosen bills: registra on of the bills, resolu ons of commi ees, vo ng results and final adop on of the bills.

Zakonoproekt app provides its users with a convenient access mode and sorts informa on per bills that are published on the Verkhovna Rada website. A mobile app will be useful for authors and ini ators of bills, for field experts, journalists and civil society ac vists.

Interface of Zakonoproekt app

PUBLICATION OF DATA SETS IN OPEN DATA FORMAT ON PARLIAMENTARY WEB RESOURCES

(sec on 4.4)

Star ng from November 2015 OPORA civil society network with the support of the UNDP in Ukraine has been implemen ng a project called The Verkhovna Rada Open Data Portal that is supposed to contain basic data sets. On February 5, 2016 OPORA civil society network, the Verkhovna Rada Administra on and the State Agency on Electronic Governance signed a Memorandum on coopera on to work on the portal together. OPORA together with the Department of Computerized Systems at the Administra on prepared the terms of reference and chose a pla orm.

On April 26 OPORA presented the updated Verkhovna Rada Open Data Portal (opendata.rada.gov.ua).

This web resource now contains 110 structured basic data sets of open parliamentary data concerning legisla on, bills, plenary sessions, Ukrainian MPs etc.

On the basis of this data one can create analy cal products and web instruments that will help providing informa on on the parliamentary work in the easiest possible way.

– I hope that we'll overcome ignorance related to open data, and the Verkhovna Rada Open Data Portal will help here, – said Oleksandr Ryzhenko, Head of the State Agency on Electronic Governance at the presenta on. He also added that the Open Data Portal (opendata.rada.gov.ua) will soon be integrated with the Unified Open Data Portal (data.gov.ua).

Now the Verkhovna Rada Open Data Portal contains the following data sets in the formats csv, json and xml: – MPs (II – VIII convoca on) – Bills (III – VIII convoca on) – Legal framework – Plenary sessions (III – VIII convoca on) – Financial and economic informa on – Organiza onal structure of the Verkhovna Rada Administra on

Interface of the Verkhovna Rada Open Data Portal

Mee ng of representa ves of the Open Parliament Ini a ve Svitlana Zalishchuk and Nataliia Vatamaniuk with Joe Powel, ac ng director of the Open Government Partnership, March 23, 2016

Press briefing devoted to presenta on of the latest report on the Open Government Partnership Independent Repor ng Mechanism concerning Ukraine and coopera on with the Open Parliament Ini a ve, March 23, 2016

– We know a number of reforms are taking place in Ukraine now, so I'd prefer not to distract Ukrainians and not to steal their me. But please let me prove my opinion that these are the Open Parliament and the Open Government ini a ves that provide people with the necessary instruments which will help forming the agenda of changes and influencing those reforms directly, – Joe Powel, ac ng director of the Open Government Partnership

Mee ng of the Monitoring Commi ee of the Open Parliament Ini a ve, March 18, 2016

CIVIL SOCIETY AND PARLIAMENTARY CONFERENCE: WE CREATE ACCOUNTABLE AND RESPONSIBLE PARLIAMENT, April 15, 2016 organized by USAID Rada Programme, implemented by East Europe Founda on and UNDP in Ukraine in coopera on with Vekkhovna Rada Administra on

– Trust of the society in the Ukrainian Parliament will be higher once the execu ve brunch starts working in a transparent, accountable and open manner. Civic control instruments that are to be used not only by experts and analysts, but by voters as well, will s mulate people to be more conscien ous when delega ng their authori es, and poli cians to be more accountable for their deeds, – Olha Aivazovska, coordinator of civil network OPORA. – The process is of absolutely new quality in the history of Ukrainian Parliamentarianism, when in order to create reforms and implement best prac ces of transparency and openness, parliamentarians, civil society, journalists and government officials unite together. Open Parliament ini a ve has reached its first results with the help of its par cipants men oned above.

Some of the results are: special places to work with those who requests informa on were separated; new website sec on Transi on was added to the card of the bills; the mechanism to publish full texts of depu es' inquiries and replies has been developed of the official website of the Parliament; Verkhovna Rada open data portal is being ready to get launched in the nearest future where informa on about people's depu es, dra laws, financial and administra ve data will be published in its full volume and in machine readable format, – Svitlana Zalishchuk, Ukrainian MP. – Civil society is inseparable part of any reform. Engagement, advocacy and monitoring are founda ons of the coopera on between governmental ins tu ons and civil society. Civic organiza ons remain to be agents of the necessary changes despite the fact they are outside the parliament, – Pat Cox, the chair of the European Parliament's needs assessment mission to the Ukrainian parliament, ex-president of the European Parliament.

Civil society and parliamentary conference: We Create Accountable and Responsible Parliament, April 15, 2016

Open Parliament Ini a ve expert mee ng with the Head of Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Andrii Parubii regarding Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Regula ons changes, May 6, 2016

This document has been prepared by interna onal and civic organiza ons and experts, in par cular by signatories of the Parliamentary Openness Declara on: Transparency Interna onal Ukraine, Civil Network OPORA, CHESNO movement, Eidos Centre and Media Law Ins tute.

The publica on has been prepared with the support of Transparency Interna onal Ukraine in framework of the "Open Governance Project: Beyond paper promises achieving real impact for people" and Democra za on, Human Rights and Civil Society Development Programme in Ukraine (2013 - 2016) funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The views, conclusions and recommenda ons belong to the authors and developers of this publica on and not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs UNDP or other UN agencies.

Please contact Natalia Vatamaniuk: natali.vatamaniuk@undp.org with the proposi ons of coopera on regarding transparent work of the parliament and ci zen engagement to the parliamentary processes in compliance with the Declara on on Parliamentary Openness principles.

Declara on on Parliamentary Openness: h p://openingparliament.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/declara on/1.0/ukrainian.pdf

Ac on Plan of Declara on on Parliamentary Openness Implementa on: h p://dhrp.org.ua/uk/publikatsii1/1036-20160205-ua-publica on

Report and Roadmap on internal reform and capacity-building for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine: h p://www.europarl.europa.eu/resources/library/media/20160301RES16508/20160301RES16508.pdf

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