“Reform of the Institute of Local Referendum: Participation of Citizens in Governance”

To date, the issue of direct participation of citizens in government, including through a local referendum, is becoming more urgent for the public and local self -government bodies. First of all, this is due to the conditions in which local self -government bodies work today – the conditions of increasing limited political freedom and resource dependence on the government. The decisions made in such conditions are made of higher requirements for legitimacy and quality.

Analysis of the situation and consultation with interested parties, conducted over the last year by participants in the reform support network, testify to several trends that cannot be considered favorable to the institutional and economic capacity of local self -government bodies, as well as non -governmental structures.

a) the process of centralizing power and gradual limitation of the role and powers of local self -government; It is transformed into an institute of public authority, subordinate to the vertical of the executive power. This is evidenced in particular by the practice of division of subsidies into socio-economic development of regions, revision of their own regulatory acts by local self-government bodies.

b) self -governing platforms and associations by the authorities are a rather limited role in the legislative process. The consequences are inconsistency in the use of the norms of new budget and tax codes, which together did not lead to an increase in the financial self -sufficiency of local self -government bodies, especially in terms of development expenditures.

c) a simplified approach in understanding the problems of housing and communal services has led to reform delay. Attempts to introduce transparency and reasonableness in tariff policy are accompanied by “shadow” processes of promoting a new housing code, which is not provided by the presidential program and is not approved by a wide public and expert environment, as well as attempts to introduce additional mechanisms of centralized distribution of compensation and the difference between prices. Housing and communal services.

d) the authorities consider the third sector as an additional tool for influencing the business environment, not as an equal partner in the political process. This is evidenced by the initiative to introduce the Institute of Self -Regulatory Organizations as a tool for regulatory influence of government on business.

These interacted reform attempts indicate that the corresponding political decisions were not thoroughly analyzed with the local specificity, the formation of the “agenda” of these initiatives did not provide for the positions formed by the mechanisms of local democracy. However, although in this context, the territorial community assigned the role of the object, not the subject of reform, the call of social tension will have to be accepted by civil society and local politicians. One of the best ways to stabilize the situation that will be used in the following years is to use direct democracy tools, such as a local referendum, to approve informed and generally accepted decisions that are important for the community.

At the same time, the current legislation fundamentally limits the relevant desires of the community, and the latest attempts of the authorities to improve it have proved to be poor quality.

The Law on Local Self -Government in Ukraine establishes a number of mechanisms of direct participation of members of territorial communities in solving local issues. Among such forms, in particular-a local referendum, a general meeting of citizens at the place of residence, local initiatives (Articles 7-9 of the Law). Only a local referendum could be the most effective of these mechanisms, since local initiatives need to be approved by local councils, and the decisions of the general meeting of citizens at the place of residence are not subject to compulsory execution – they are only taken into account by local self -government bodies in their activities.

The potential of a referendum as a form of direct involvement of citizens in solving local issues remains unused. The main reason for this is that the Law on All -Ukrainian and Local Referendums is clearly outdated (the law was adopted in 1991), contradicts democratic standards and in fact makes it impossible to hold referendums without the consent of local authorities (initiating, organizing and conducting a local referendum. That is why it is not surprising that the initiatives on holding referendums at the local level in most cases end at the stage of their initiation. The procedural part of the law “written” is so imperfect (compared to any of the electoral laws) that it is virtually impossible to conduct a referendum under the law without falsification and distortion of the results of will. That is why the creation of proper conditions for participation of community members in resolving issues of local importance through local referendums requires a radical revision of the said law.

In September 2010, the Cabinet of Ministers submitted a draft Law on Local Referendum (RN 7082), which was approved by the Parliament in the first reading on 19.04.2011. This project contains a number of significant shortcomings. As a consequence, even if it is approved as a law, it is unlikely to expand the ability of citizens to address local issues. In particular, the bill limits the list of issues that are compulsory to a local referendum, only the only issue – the reorganization and elimination of existing municipal pre -school educational institutions, although the list of such issues requires significant expansion. As in the current law, the procedure for initiating, organizing and conducting a local referendum is defined in such a way that local governments will be able to easily block the referendum of those issues in which local authorities are not interested. In addition, the regulation of the procedure for initiating, organizing and conducting referendums on the quality of legal regulation is significantly inferior to the quality of regulation of electoral procedures. Thus, the bill “On a local referendum” requires a radical revision before its approval as a whole as a law.

Realistic ways to solve the problem above Participants in the reform support network consider the consolidated influence of the public, experts and interested representatives of local self -government on Parliament in order to include in the said draft law provisions that would make it possible to hold a local referendum – primarily on the initiative of the public and for the purpose of considering a wide range of issues, and public.