ODIHR Legal Reviews, Assessments and Guidelines

Opinion

• Joint Opinion on the Draft Law on Political Parties (in English) [ 2021/03/23 | en | ] Summary

  The current initiatives to amend the legislation on political parties of Ukraine are welcome, but a top-down approach to ensure bottom-up democracy within political parties creates risks of overregulation and raises concerns of internal autonomy of political parties, said the Venice Commission and the OSCE/ODIHR in their joint opinion adopted on 20 March at the latest plenary session of the Venice Commission.

  Many provisions of the Draft Law of Ukraine on political parties are in line with previous OSCE/ODIHR and Venice Commission recommendations. In particular, the drafters’ attempts to strengthen the transparency of the registration and functioning of political parties, to facilitate the process of registering political parties, to establish more effective funding and financial reporting requirements, to further delineate the powers of oversight bodies in terms of party finance monitoring and to ensure gender equality, are acknowledged and go in the right direction.

  At the same time, the Draft Law overregulates matters that normally lie within the discretion of political parties themselves, which in turn raises concerns with regard to the internal autonomy of the parties.

  The Joint Opinion concludes that the Draft Law on political parties is a positive initiative, but creates risks of overregulation and unnecessary restrictions.

• Joint Opinion on the Draft Law on Political Parties (in Ukrainian) [ 2021/03/23 | en | ]
• Joint Opinion on the Draft Amendments to some Legislative Acts concerning Prevention of and Fight against Political Corruption in Ukraine [ 2015/10/26 | en | ]
• Joint Opinion on the Draft Amendments to some Legislative Acts concerning Prevention of and Fight against Political Corruption in Ukraine (in Ukrainian) [ 2015/10/26 | en | ]
• Annex to the Draft Joint Opinion on the Draft Amendments to some Legislative Acts concerning Prevention of and Fight against Political Corruption in Ukraine [ 2015/09/07 | en | ]
• Opinion on Draft Amendments to some Legislative Acts of Ukraine concerning Transparency of Financing of Political Parties and Election Campaigns [ 2014/09/11 | en | ]
• Opinion on Draft Amendments to some Legislative Acts of Ukraine concerning Transparency of Financing of Political Parties and Election Campaigns (in Ukrainian) [ 2014/09/11 | en | ]