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COMMENTS ON THE UKRAINIAN LEGISLATIVE
PROCESS
In order to understand the legislative process in Ukraine, one must take
certain factors into consideration.
Firstly, there are basically three branches of government --
the Parliament, the Presidential Administration, and the Counsel of Ministers.
Each one of these branches has the authority to adopt "legislative acts"
which have the force of law The Verchovna Rada (Parliament) enacts laws
and adopts resolutions; the President has the authority to issue decrees,
edicts and orders, which have the force of law; and the Counsel of Ministers
has the power to adopt resolutions and issue instructions on implementing
the legislative acts of the Counsel of Ministers and of the other branches
of government. Quite often, one branch of government will contradict the
acts of another. One might think, at first blush, that this is somewhat
of a chaotic system. However, one must remember that Ukraine is a newly
independent state and is in the midst of developing a society based upon
the Rule of Law. The United States has had 200 years of experience in this
area. In addition, try explaining to a Ukrainian, or even to a European,
the federal/state system that we have in the United States and various
conflict of laws issues that may arise. They probably will have more difficulty
understanding us them we understanding them.
Secondly, one should bear in mind that the most glaring shortcoming
is the lack of a codification system for the Laws and Legislative Acts
of Ukraine. During the Soviet Era, the only place where legislative acts
were published was in the official press of the government. There were
no law libraries or other repositories or statute books where a Ukrainian
lawyer could find access to this legislation. Many judges, including the
Supreme Court Justices and preeminent lawyers in Ukraine, have told me
in my personal interviews with them that even these pre-eminent jurists
had difficulty in accessing the text of the law that they had to interpret
and enforce. Presently, with western aid, a strong effort is being made
to establish a codification system. However, it is not anticipated that
this codification system will be established for a few years.
The third element which causes difficulty in understanding Ukrainian
legislation is the problem of translation. Western and Ukrainian translators
often take the same legislative document and translate it differently albeit
correctly. For example, one of the most important pieces of Ukrainian legislation
is the "Law on Business Associations" adopted by the Verchovna Rada
(Parliament) on September 19, 1991. The title to this piece of legislation
has been translated as the "Law on Economic Associations", the "Law on
Business Partnerships', and "The Corporation Law of Ukraine". Technically
speaking, each one of these translations is probably linguistically correct.
However, to a legal practitioner these differences in title translation
erroneously mislead the observer and give the impression that a series
of laws exist where, in fact, only one statute is in issue. The lack of
a codification system also complicates the process of identifying which
legislative acts supersede, modify, amend, or supplement the prior legislation.
Quite often there is a lack of cross-referencing to other legislative acts
in the original Ukrainian text.
For the purposes of these Web pages, the titles to all legislative acts
will be followed by the date of enactment. All legislative acts, other
than "Laws," will also have the name of the branch of government which
adopted same. Laws are adopted by Verchovna Rada (Parliament) do not require
further identification.
. The text and the summaries of legislation that appear in these
Web pages are not in any way represented to be current or without subsequent
supplement or modification It is strongly recommended that if the most
current legislative pronouncement are at issue, then competent legal advice
be obtained on the subject. These Web page are not intended to be a substitute
for same nor are they intended to render such legal advice.
VIEWING WEB
PAGES IN THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE
Many of theLegal Web pages contain information in the Ukrainian
script. Unfortunately, there is no one single standard for transmitting
the Ukrainian alphabet (nor the Russian, for that matter) throughout the
Internet. The majority of documents in the Ukrainian script are in KOI8
compatible fonts. Others are in the CP 1251 format. Each Ukrainian Text
Web page and link contain information as to which font is being used. Many
WEB pages are being reproduced in both fonts so that readers that have
one or the other format can easily read them. Your Web Browser must have
one or the other of these fonts loaded in order to successfully view that
page. If you do not have the appropriate fonts and you need instructions
on how to obtain them, I would recommend that you visit the BRAMA Computers
Web Pages to download them and to obtain further instructions on their
use.
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