Donbas RJRC has developed proposals for draft law "On State Policy of Transition Period"

In January 2021 Donbas Regional Justice Reform Council submitted proposals to the draft law "On the State Policy of the Transition Period" drafted by the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine.

According to members of the Donbas Council, which includes leading judges, lawyers, academia, political scientists and other legal professionals, the draft law is the first comprehensive document aimed at overcoming the consequences of armed aggression by the Russian Federation at the state level. However, the draft law needs to be finalized taking into account the following comments:

• The text of the document combines framework rules with attempts at special regulation, which is impractical. It would be more appropriate to make the draft law a framework one and to make appropriate amendments to the Transitional Provisions of existing laws given the timeliness of the envisaged measures.
• Combining regulatory framework in respect of many spheres, starting from national memory and ending with education, privileges in different spheres of legal relations in one law is unreasonable given the cumbersomeness of the text as a whole and the gaps in the regulation of certain spheres. This should be addressed by relevant bylaws.
• The practical implementation of some provisions of the draft law seems to be challenging. In particular, if it will be possible to finance all measures of the transition period from local budgets.
• The draft law contains a number of norms that do not comply with the norms of laws in force, in particular, the Civil Code of Ukraine as to statute of limitations, the law "On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges", etc.
• A number of important issues were left out of the draft law, in particular, financial and moral compensation for victims of the conflict.
• The draft law restricts the rights of citizens crossing the demarcation line. It is now allowed to transport anything that is not prohibited. The draft law, on the other hand, provides for a U-turn format, when everything that is not allowed is prohibited.

We offer a detailed description of these and other proposals in the document: Proposals of the Donbas Regional Justice Reform Council on the draft law "On the State Policy in the Transition Period".

Background:

Regional Justice Reform Councils (RJRCs) have been created with support of the EU Project "Pravo-Justice" and function in Chernivtsi, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Lviv, Odesa regions and Donbas. To date, Councils members have been actively participating in drafting a bill on mediation, amendments to the Bankruptcy Code, proposals to improve legislation on enforcement proceedings, introducing e-court and discussing the concept of transitional justice.

RJRCs act as permanent working groups to promote bottom-up reforms: bringing region-specific challenges and potential solutions thereof to the level of central government.