Which committees choose not to secure publicity of the meetings?

26 VRU committees have conducted 293 meetings during two sessions of the Parliament (information received on 10/1/2013). Almost one fourth part of them, particularly 71 meetings (24.4 %), were delayed or not announced. 222 meetings were conducted according to the schedule. Representatives of 3 committees refused to give minutes of their meetings to OPORA, what is a gross violation of the Law on Access to Public Information. These committees are: Committee on Agrarian Policy and Land Relations, Committee on Budget, and the Committee on Rules of Parliamentary Procedure, Ethics and Support to Work of the VRU. In order to secure citizen rights on access to the information about activities of government bodies, OPORA is preparing lawsuits against the committees.

Civil Network OPORA has assessed planned activities of VRU committees, and made a conclusion that MPs predominantly choose not to secure publicity of the meetings A lot of committees didn't promulgate their working plans, and made sudden changes in the schedule of meetings without any notifications.

According to the Law on on Committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, activities of MPs shall be based on planning principles. According to the Article 41(3) of the corresponding Law, main events and deadlines in activities of committees shall be planned, as well as individuals who are going to be responsible for their implementation shall be appointed on every session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Moreover, heads of committees should conduct scheduled meeting in order to create a working plan. This rule has an exception saying that such meeting can be conducted upon a request of not less than one third part of membership of a committee.

Civil Network OPORA has compared the dates of meetings indicated in protocols, and dates announced on site of the VRU. In such a way, the organization has determined the level of planning in activities of 26 committees.

Committee on Informatization and Information Technologies is the least open to the public.

Committee on Informatization and Information Technologies is the least open to the public. Only 3 meetings were conducted in this committee, and none of them were properly announced. Committee on Culture and Spirituality is on the second place. Its members have conducted 6 meetings, 5 of which were not announced beforehand. Journalists and the public were often confused by announced dates of meetings. Conduction of 8 meetings was announced on site of the Verkhovna Rada, 63% of which were rescheduled for another time without any notification. The other 2 meetings were not conducted due to the absence of quorum.

Committee on the Rule of Law and Justice conducted 56% of meetings without prior notification. 6 meetings of the Committee were announced on the site of the Verkhovna Rada. However, only 4 of 9 meetings were conducted on the announced time. Moreover, 5 meetings of the Committee were not announced at all.

Other VRU committees conducted from 5 to 50% of their meetings without announcement of the date and location of their conduction. Committee on Social Policy and Labor has the best results in securing planned activities. This government body has conducted 15 meetings, 14 of which were properly announced.

Results of the assessment conducted by OPORA have showed that most of committees don't think that they need to inform the public about their working plans. However, it's a gross violation of the Law of Ukraine on Access to Public Information, which provides that government bodies shall publish information about their meetings, schedule, and agenda. Committee on Economic Policy, Committee on Family Matters, Youth Policy, Sports and Tourism, and Committee on Social Policy and Labor have conducted the biggest number of meetings. These committees had 15 meetings each. Simultaneously, Committee on Informatization and Information Technologies and Committee on Transport and Communications conducted only tree meetings during the last 7 months.

The Law of Ukraine on Committees of the Verkhovna of Ukraine doesn't provide any minimum mandatory requirements for conducting meetings. They should plan their activities when draft laws should be considered and when they need to fulfill the other duties. However, having analyzed the average number of scheduled meetings and the number of draft laws which are to be considered, OPORA came to a conclusion that a number of committees work less than their colleagues. While most of the committees conducted 11 meetings in average for the last half of a year, 2 VRU committees conducted only three. These committees are given below. Committee on Informatization and Information Technologies has 8 key draft laws for consideration and 35 for making comments. Committee on Transport and Communications has 41 key draft laws to consider and 106 other draft laws. Committee on Foreign Affairs has conducted 7 meetings, Committee on the Rule of Law and Justice - 9, Committee on Fuel and Energy Complex, Nuclear Policy and Nuclear Safety - 9.