How Ukraine’s Parliament functions

On September 3, 2024, the twelfth session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (the ninth convocation) started its activity, which is expected to end in February 2025.

As of September 23, 3704 draft laws are currently under consideration by the Parliament of Ukraine, which are distributed among the committees as follows:

The  Ukrainian Parliamentary Committees (23 committees in total)	Number of draft laws as of September 23, 2024
	Main executor	Co-executor
On  law enforcement issues	644	336
On finance, tax and customs policy	465	399
On social policy and protection of veterans’ rights	388	509
On legal policy issues	365	1268
On economic development issues	300	741
On national security, defense and intelligence issues	257	744
On organization of state governance, local self-government, regional development and urban planning	230	575
On the procedure, parliamentary ethics and organization of work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine	156	106
On humanitarian and information policy	153	379
On human rights, de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, national minorities and international relations	127	520

By its Resolution No. 3939-IX dated September 03, 2024, the Parliament of Ukraine approved the Agenda of the Twelfth Session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the ninth convocation.

Pursuant to part two of Article 21 of the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, approved by the Law of Ukraine No. 1861-VI “On the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine” dated February 10, 2010 (as amended), “the issues of the approved agenda of the session of the Parliament that remained unaddressed at the regular session of the Verkhovna Rada shall be included in the draft agenda of the next regular session of the Verkhovna Rada of the same convocation, which shall be approved in accordance with the procedure established by these Rules”.

Therefore, the Agenda of the current session of the Ukrainian Parliament includes several dozen draft laws registered back in 2019 (five years later!).

For some reason, the Parliamentary Committees on Social Policy and Veterans’ Rights (12 draft laws), Law Enforcement (9 draft laws), Legal Policy (7 draft laws), Humanitarian and Information Policy (6 draft laws), Human Rights, De-occupation and Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine, National Minorities and Interethnic Relations (6 draft laws) are in no hurry to consider such draft laws.

However, if the committee has not been able to consider a draft law for five years, it is unlikely that it will consider it at this session.

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