Rada passes bill No 4128 on third attempt

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine

On January 17, 2019, the bill “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine ‘On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations’ (regarding changes in subordination by religious communities)” was supported by 229 deputies.

The bill was passed only on the third attempt: for the first time, the draft law got 223 votes, in the second vote – 224. Finally, when the VR Speaker Paruby made public the list of voters separately by faction, the required number of votes was gained.

“Lvov MPs, how can it be that there are not any of you in the session room?!” Parubiy was outraged at the first unsuccessful vote. After the second one, Paruby threatened that each deputy would be personally accountable to the public.

Since the Regulations of the Verkhovna Rada prohibits re-voting of bills in the current session, before the third attempt, MP Vadim Novinsky approached Speaker Andrei Paruby and tried to explain this to him. However, Paruby said to the deputy: “Get away from me, evil!”

If signed by the president, the bill will take effect the day following its publication.

As the UOJ reported, the VR Speaker Andrei Paruby sent the law on church raiding for revision, since this document does not take into account “all procedural and legal nuances”.

The head of Parliament, by his instructions, violated the Constitution, since the Committee on Culture and Spirituality does not have the right to initiate legislation.

Earlier, human rights activists made a number of comments on bill No. 4128 and forwarded them to the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, heads of the relevant committee and parliamentary factions the day before voting for bill No. 4128, which was scheduled for consideration on January 17.

Experts noted that the proposed changes to the Law of Ukraine “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations” do not take into account the specifics of religious communities and contain contradictory terminology that will complicate the process of changing religious subordination by religious communities and lead to inconsistency of the procedure of registration of statutes by regional state administrations.

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