Zelensky explained how the extinction of Ukrainians will affect deputies
The Verkhovna Rada included on the agenda of the session and sent to the Constitutional Court a bill to reduce the composition of the Ukrainian parliament.
The absolute majority of deputies voted for the bill, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The representative of the president in the Constitutional Court, Fyodor Venislavsky, spoke and voiced Vladimir Zelensky’s proposal to reduce the number of deputies in the Ukrainian parliament from 450 to 300 and consolidate the proportional electoral system. The speaker explained the need to reduce the number of people's representatives, first of all, by the desire of the people, and also by the fact that in 1996, when such a norm was enshrined in the Constitution, the population of Ukraine was 52 million.
In addition, he proposed removing from Article 76 the provision that elections of people's deputies take place on the principles of freedom and secret voting. At the same time, he emphasized that this is being done solely to save the “constitutional text”, as this is indicated in other articles. Among other things, it was proposed to remove the mandatory knowledge of the Ukrainian language as one of the conditions for being elected as a deputy of Ukraine, which is duplicated in another provision of the Constitution.
MP from Batkivshchyna Mykhailo Tsymbalyuk asked how the standard of knowledge of the Ukrainian language would be checked.
“The mechanism for a candidate’s compliance with this qualification may be similar to that established by the law on citizenship of Ukraine when the candidate submits the relevant documents when a language proficiency exam is conducted,” said Olga Sovgir, deputy head of the legal policy committee.
People's Deputy from Oppoplatform Nestor Shufrich announced that his faction proposes to introduce an alternative law.
“After the words “speaks the state language,” add the following: “... and does not have citizenship of another state or states.” Do you remember the story “I have not two citizenships, but three, so this does not apply to me,” Shufrich said, hinting at the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky.
“Where is the logic about 300 people’s deputies of Ukraine? A colleague said that there are fewer of us. So in four years we must make sure that there are more of us! Because people returned and asked for Ukrainian citizenship - that’s exactly what I saw in the film “Servant of the People-3,” Shufrich added ironically.
He also said that if the electoral system is changed to proportional according to open lists, then “it is logical that we do not need corresponding seats for majority voters, and we propose a number of 225 people’s deputies,” which will save half a billion hryvnia from the budget.
However, an absolute majority voted for the law, taking into account the fact that 237 of the 258 deputies who supported the project turned out to be representatives of the pro-presidential Servant of the People party.
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