Another bill on peaceful assemblies has been registered in parliament

A bill on freedom of peaceful assembly has been registered in the Verkhovna Rada. The document secures the right of citizens to hold spontaneous and counter-assemblies, and also proposes to abolish fines and arrest of protest participants. However, the most controversial provision on submitting applications to hold a rally 48 hours before its start was retained in the bill. Meanwhile, several more alternative bills are planned to be registered in parliament in the near future, in which this deadline may be changed.

The comments and wishes of public organizations are not reflected in the bill
Photo: Vladislav Sodel, Kommersant

At the end of last week, eight people's deputies from the factions of the Party of Regions, Batkivshchyna and the Communist Party registered draft law N2508a "On freedom of peaceful assembly." At the beginning of June, this document was supported by the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Human Rights, National Minorities and Interethnic Relations (see Kommersant, June 6 ). One of the authors of the bill - First Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Human Rights Andriy Shevchenko (Batkivshchyna) - spoke about the presence in it of a clear list of grounds for prohibiting actions, as well as norms establishing the right of citizens to hold counter-assemblies (simultaneous meetings expressing disagreement with the position of participants in another action) and spontaneous meetings (rallies that could not be warned about within the time frame stipulated by the bill). “There is even a rule that failure to report or untimely notification of a meeting is not a reason to ban it,” he added.

However, the bill retains the provision obliging people to submit an application to hold a rally 48 hours before it starts. This provision caused the greatest amount of controversy among representatives of public organizations who took part in the preparation of the document. Mr. Shevchenko called this norm the “maximum that was obtained from the authorities before the first reading (representatives of various ministries wanted the deadline for submitting an application to be even longer—Kommersant).”

The document was introduced without public amendments regarding the detailed definitions of spontaneous assemblies and counter-assemblies

The people's deputy emphasized that this is not a resuscitation of the old government bill N2450, adopted in the first reading in early June 2009. In addition to the new text, changes are proposed to nine existing laws, which will be voted on as a package. In particular, it is proposed to remove Art. 185-1 and 185-2, according to which organizers and participants of peaceful assemblies can be fined and detained. In addition, changes are being made to the law “On the Police”, which oblige law enforcement officers to warn protesters about the use of physical force or special means and give them time to react to this. “Some radical activists believe that we do not need a special law, since the Constitution guarantees the holding of peaceful assemblies. But it is an illusion that with the Constitution in hand they will be able to defend their right to rallies. Last year there were 358 court bans on street protests, and local authorities have begun to adopt their own instructions for regulating protests. If we do not pass the law, then by 2015 people in Ukraine will not be able to take to the streets at all!” - Mr. Shevchenko told Kommersant.

He added that alternative bills could be submitted within two weeks. According to him, a similar desire exists among representatives of the Svoboda party and Lesya Orobets (Batkivshchyna): “The head of our committee, Valery Patskan, said that he will further refine this project with the public and come up with an alternative option. But I don’t think he will be significantly different from the existing one."

Meanwhile, Mr. Patskan told Kommersant that the document was submitted to the Rada without final amendments from the public regarding the detailed definitions of spontaneous assemblies and counter-assemblies. “Unfortunately, some deputies rushed and registered the document without these amendments. We will have several more meetings this week, after which we will introduce an alternative bill,” said the deputy, noting that their version will have a “more neutral time frame” for filing applications. As Kommersant learned, we are talking about submitting an application 24 hours before the start of the rally.

In these inconsistencies, the head of the public organization “Institute “Republic”” Vladimir Chemeris sees “personal competition” between Andrei Shevchenko and Valery Patskan: “Registration of the document was a shock for many! Public organizations will support only the option in which there will be a constitutional norm allowing notification of meetings at any moment. There may soon be three or four options in the Rada, but it seems to me that none of them will be able to get enough votes.” Coordinator of the partnership “For Freedom of Peaceful Assembly” Maxim Latsiba said that the amendments being discussed are of a technical nature, and they can be introduced by the second reading of bill N2508a. “The discussion of the law on peaceful assemblies has already lasted for more than three years. The more alternative options there are, the less likely it is that this document will be adopted at all,” he told Kommersant.

Irina Lopatina

Newspaper "Kommersant Ukraine" No. 111 dated 07/08/2013, page 3

Authors:

Irina Lopatina

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