Human rights defenders demand from Parubiy to prevent falsification of voting for Ombudsman’s election procedure

Public organizations that are members of the Human Rights Agenda coalition demand from Parliament Speaker Andriy Parubiy to ensure the correct display of the final text of the Law “On the Constitutional Court of Ukraine” and to prevent falsification of voting results for the procedure for election of the Ombudsman that took place as a part of the adoption of the said law.

As stated in the open statement of the coalition published on the Facebook page.

Human rights defenders remind that on July 13, the deputies adopted the law of Ukraine “On the Constitutional Court of Ukraine” (№ 6427-d) as a whole. This was preceded by a discussion of the amendment voiced by People’s Deputy Olga Chervakova, which concerned the preservation of the procedure of secret voting for candidates for the position of Ombudsman.

“Despite the fact that the number of the amendment was wrongly named, the text of the verbatim clearly stated the concrete essence of this proposal. 227 people’s deputies supported it during the vote. Immediately after considering this agenda item, information on the voting results was displayed on the official website of the parliament as a vote for a proposal to the bill. But in a few minutes it was changed to another, incorrect correction, which does not correspond to the essence of the proposed proposal and a vote on this proposal was never held”, – the human rights defenders of the coalition explain.

They call such actions an attempt to manipulate the Verkhovna Rada’s apparatus for further falsifying the text of the adopted bill and the continuation of closed political bidding that began around the election of a new Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights in May this year.

The Human Rights Agenda notes that the procedure for electing the Ombudsman was not be considered at all in the framework of the bill on the Constitutional Court.

Human rights defenders place personal responsibility on Andriy Parubiy, Chairman of the Parliament, “ for ensuring the correct display of the results of voting in the final text of the law, which will be sent to the President to sign”.

“We still have hope for your decency and loyalty to the principles of the rule of law, as you stated at a spontaneous meeting with human rights defenders, when the question was raised about the procedure for electing a new Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights”, – human rights defenders wrote.

In addition, the Human Rights Agenda calls on international organizations to take control of this situation in order to prevent politicization of the national human rights institution.

As a reminder, on July 11, Andriy Parubiy, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, made a suggestion to deputies to consider a bill on the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, but the deputies have not supported this initiative. The day before, a statement appeared on the Facebook page of the Human Rights Agenda, it stated that open voting for the Ombudsman “will greatly simplify the factions chairmen’s control over the people’s deputies after conducting a political bid for this post”.

On July 13, the draft law on the CCS was proposed again for consideration. Before voting for the bill as a whole, the deputies voted separately for amendments to it. Deputy Olga Chervakova proposed an amendment to maintain the procedure of secret voting for the election of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights (the new bill on the CCS provided for an open voting in the Parliament for the Ombudsman candidacy). She read the essence of the amendment out loud and called the number of the amendment 536. 227 deputies voted for the amendment. But then it turned out that the amendment to the number 536 concerns another issue. Chervakova insists that the deputies voted for the text of the amendment. Moreover, the text of amendment number 536 was put to a vote earlier and has not gained the required amount of votes.

The Human Rights Agenda Platform – is an informal coalition of human rights organizations working in the area of monitoring, analysis and drawing up of legislation in compliance with the basic principles of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, Center for Civil Liberties, Amnesty International in Ukraine, Human Rights Information Centre, Center for Study of Law Enforcement Activities, Project “Without Borders”, Centre for Social Action, Euromaidan SOS are members of the Platform.