Measure

1.5.1.1.1. Supporting the consideration of the Draft Law of Ukraine On Political Parties in the Parliament of Ukraine (particularly if the President of Ukraine vetoes the draft law) after holding consultations with the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Parliament of Ukraine, which would:
1) create favorable conditions for the creation and state registration of political parties by excluding the requirement that the decision to form a political party must be preceded by collecting at least 10,000 signatures of citizens of Ukraine who, under the Constitution of Ukraine, have the right to vote in elections, collected in at least two-thirds of districts of the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol, as well as at least two-thirds of districts of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea;
2) obligate the Central Electoral Commission to submit annually (by February 1) to the Ministry of Justice the information about political parties that did not nominate and register over the past ten years their candidates for the elections of the President of Ukraine, the elections of people’s deputies of Ukraine, or candidates for seats with least five regional councils in local elections as of January 1 of the relevant year;
3) obligate the Ministry of Justice to file a lawsuit seeking the annulment of state registration of a political party upon receiving information from the Central Electoral Commission about political parties that did not nominate and register over the past ten years their candidates for the elections of the President of Ukraine, the elections of people’s deputies of Ukraine, or candidates for seats with at least five regional councils in local elections as of January 1 of the relevant year;
4) define the principles according to which political parties should be formed and operated, in particular: rule of law, legality, respect for the constitutional system and sovereignty of the state, zero tolerance of discrimination, equality and intra-party democracy, representativeness, institutionalization, transparency and openness of the activities of the political party;
5) define the requirements for the contents of a political party’s charter, which includes defining the following in the charter: the scope and term of powers of governing, controlling, inspecting and other statutory bodies of a political party, and the procedure for changing their composition; the procedure and guarantees of convention of extraordinary congresses (assemblies, conferences) by a political party, particularly when demanded by a specific number of party members and/or when demanded by organizations of the party; the general structure and powers of structural units of a political party;
6) stipulate that political parties must form arbitration bodies authorized to examine the issues of performance of charter requirements by party members, as well as the procedure for contesting the decisions, actions or omissions by arbitration bodies of political parties;
7) restrict the political party’s right to run in the elections if this party has failed to submit a report on assets, income, expenditures, and financial liabilities to the National Agency for two or more consecutive times or at least three times within the past two reporting years;
8) define a new mechanism of allocation of budget funding to provide financial support to parties that have not cleared the legislatively prescribed threshold in the elections of people’s deputies of Ukraine: political parties are entitled to receive state funding if they scored at least 2 percent of votes in the most recent scheduled or early election of people’s deputies of Ukraine in the nationwide multi-mandate constituency out of the total number of votes cast for all rosters of candidates for people’s deputies of Ukraine in the nationwide multi-mandate constituency;
9) define an exhaustive list of:
a) prohibitions for political parties from spending funds received as part of state funding, particular to: finance activities that are not covered by the charter of the political party or are prohibited by the charter; repay any debt incurred by the political party before the day immediately following the day of the opening of the first session of the Parliament of Ukraine of the new convocation; transfer them to election funds;
b) priority avenues for the spending of funds received by political parties as part of state funding, particularly for the development of political parties in line with their statutory objectives, improving the quality of communications and ties of political parties with voters, and increasing the interest of women and young people in political activism;
10) define monitoring as a system of ongoing observation of financial and business activities and other activities of political parties for the purposes of risk identification;
11) define the entity responsible for approving the rules of monitoring of financial and business activities and other activities of political parties.