Ukrainian parliamentarians worked tirelessly during this week – they reviewed as many as 49 draft laws. Several of them became symbolic for all Ukrainian citizens and some of them – long-awaited for people living in Crimea and Donbass as well as for migrants from these occupied territories.
On Tuesday, February 3, the high spot was the consideration of a draft law on amendments to the Law on the National Anticorruption Bureau, but the deputies could only vote a resolution adopting it as a basis.
Another full day of the Verkhovna Rada’s work that was on Thursday, February 5, was marked by the majority support for so called cancellation of deputies’ immunity. The deputies removed de-facto two sentences from the Art.80 of the Constitution of Ukraine: “The parliamentary immunity is guaranteed to the people’s deputies of Ukraine” and “People’s deputies of Ukraine shall not be held criminally liable, detained or arrested without the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.”
By the way, this draft law partially removed the inviolability of judges – now a judge can be arrested not with the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine but with the consent of the High Council of Justice. In this case “bringing a judge to responsibility is possible according to the standard procedure.”
The draft law has been sent to the Constitutional Court, the deputies are waiting for the results to take a repeat vote.
The deputies scored another “point” in the estimation of the public by voting to impose a ban the Russian TV product. Such a prohibition appeared by voting for the amendments to the Law “On Cinematography”, which was complemented by the entire article with the following title: “Distribution and demonstration of films, which contain some of the popularization of occupier’s authorities and values of criminal subculture.”
In particular, the parliamentarians prohibited the films, which “contain popularization, agitation, propaganda, and any actions of law enforcement agencies, armed forces and other armed, military or security forces of an occupier”, what is more, the ban was imposed no worse than on pornography – such films are prohibited to broadcast even in the Internet!
The definition of agitation and propaganda is equally remarkable: the banned films are those, in which the police or military are the key or even supporting heroes (!), the activity of law enforcement workers or the military is related somehow to the plot of the film, “at least one of the main or minor characters in the film is a person, who has committed a crime or plans to commit it.” By the way, the Zvyagintsev’s film “Leviathan” that just has been released in Ukraine comes under these four paragraphs. It is interesting that if there is at least ONE of the above mentioned paragraphs, it is the reason to ban the film. In such a way, the Ukrainian deputies gave the grounds de-facto to ban any Russian film on the territory of Ukraine (the punishment is a fine of 10 to 50 minimum salaries for each case of the film exhibition).
For Crimea and Donbass
The former Minister for Social Policy and Crimean Lyudmila Denisova decided to take care of the migrants: she submitted a draft law, where some of the features of social support for migrants are provided, for consideration. The bill was passed in its first reading and will be finalized. However, even as we speak, it provides a number of important points.
The IDP status entitles the minimum size of unemployment benefits as well as the review of the compensation amount in case that an employment term is confirmed; vouchers for retraining, specialization or requalification of some categories of citizens and also support of migrants in job placement.
It includes the payment of transportation charges when moving to a new place of work, payment of medical examination (if necessary) and compensation the employee’s salary (equal to or less than the average salary by occupation in the region) to the employer in the first six months providing that there are safeguards to preserve the working place for the period “exceeding a payment period twofold.” If the employee is dismissed before its due time, the employer will have to return the money to the state.
And, of course, the main event of this week was the deprivation Viktor Yanukovych of the title of President of Ukraine initiated by Lyashko. 281 deputies supported the passage of the law of two sentences: “to deprive” and “to come into force”. But there is one event every day.
Yana Goryunova, for online media Pod Pricelom
