Veto on civil service personnel reserve bill, CMAs for Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, and visa-free regime for Chinese tourists — new decisions by the President

31 July 2020
Veto on civil service personnel reserve bill, CMAs for Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, and visa-free regime for Chinese tourists — new decisions by the President
Home > Monitoring > Veto on civil service personnel reserve bill, CMAs for Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, and visa-free regime for Chinese tourists — new decisions by the President

While the Parliament is on vacation and the Cabinet works on its personnel issues, the newsmaker of the week is the President.

Volodymyr Zelensky has vetoed the law on personnel reserve for Civil service (and proposed amendments he has no right to propose), eliminated local government in Lysychansk and Severodonetsk by creating there civil-military administrations, and granted temporary visa-free regime for Chinese citizens.

Veto on personnel reserve amendments to the law On Civil service

Decision-maker: the President.

Who is affected: Ukrainian citizens, civil servants, government bodies.

Grounds for the veto: the bill passed by the Verkhovna Rada reduces the term of contracts for civil servants retrospectively. Such changes go against legal security principle and thus go against the Constitution.

What does it change: the bill has not entered into force. The Parliament will consider it once more and take into account President’s proposal.

What is right: contracts with civil servants hired during the lockdown will not be reviewed retrospectively.

What is wrong:

according to the Constitution, the President can veto a bill passed by the Parliament and suggest proposals to amend provisions of that bill. Instead, Volodymyr Zelensky proposes to reshuffle the Commission for the High Corps of the Civil Service and exclude additional grounds for terminating civil servants’ contracts. Such amendments have to be submitted as a separate bill and not as veto proposals.

the President proposes to give him more influence on the Commission for the High Corps of the Civil Service. Now it includes a representative of the President, Cabinet’s HR-expert, and a representative of public administration educational establishments. Volodymyr Zelensky proposes to include representatives from his subordinate bodies: First Deputy of the NSDC Secretary, the National Institute for Strategic Studies, and the National Reform Council. The Commission makes its decisions by simple majority vote, so if the President will have three of the seven commission members instead of one, it will give him much more power over the civil service.

during the lockdown, civil servants are hired without competition, competitions are supposed to be conducted after the lockdown ends. Instead, the President proposes to allow civil servants contracted during the lockdown to continue working. Such a change makes the service non-competitive and creates a possibility to appoint civil servants that are loyal instead of professional.

What’s next: the Verkhovna Rada has to vote on the bill once more. It can approve or reject presidential amendments, discard the bill, or override the veto.

Civil-military administrations for Lysychansk and Severodonetsk

Decision-maker: the President.

Who is affected: residents, mayors, local councilors, and employees of executive committees of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk.

What does it change: Lysychansk and Severodonetsk will be run by the heads of civil-military administrations (CMAs) instead of their mayors and city councils.

What is right: local councils of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk are in opposition to their mayors, so the introduction of civil-military administrations is a way to relaunch local government in these cities.

What is wrong:

according to the Constitution, the President does not have power to create civil-military administrations. A conclusive list of local government bodies provisioned by the Constitution does not include civil-military administrations at all

after the local elections in October, civil-military administrations will be dissolved. Since it takes at least from four to six months to launch a civil-military administration, newly created CMAs will likely not make much difference.

What’next: the CMAs of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk will get state registration, their heads will be appointed upon the consent of the Joint Forces Operation Commander.

Temporary visa-free regime for Chinese citizens

Decision-maker: the President.

Who is affected: citizens of the People’s Republic of China, State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, Ukrainian tourism business.

What does it change: from August 1, 2020 to January 31, 2021, Chinese citizens are allowed to visit Ukraine for up to 30 days without a visa.

What is right: it will be easier for Chinese tourists to visit Ukraine. Tourism business will supposedly get more profit.

What is wrong: because of the lockdown restrictions and substantial decline in tourism throughout the world, visa-free regime most likely will not help to attract Chinese tourists.