Keynote Speech — Oksana Syroyid, Deputy Chairman, Verkhovna Rada. 11th Annual Ukraine Investor Conference

Dragon Capital held its 11th Annual Ukraine Investor Conference on Feb. 17-18 in Kyiv. Despite the country’s tense security situation and economic challenges predictably affecting investor sentiment, the conference was attended by over 100 international investors as well as about 200 local investors and Ukrainian companies.

Below please find highlights from the keynote speech delivered by Oksana Syroyid, Deputy Chairman, Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

On rule of law and legislative process

• The new law on judiciary is a comprehensive piece of legislation and a compromise version of two alternative drafts prepared by the Presidential Administration and parliament. The outcome was a good law, probably one of the best approved by this parliament. However, one of the major tasks of judiciary reform — eliminating political influence over judges — was only partially fulfilled as neither parliament nor president were ready for that.

• The legislative process is an important part of the rule of law. The draft law on judiciary was not thoroughly discussed by parliamentary committees, not widely circulated, and parliament deputies were not properly involved. The habit of neglecting the rules of procedure is still entrenched, but regardless of how desperately we want to have a law passed, we have to respect the legislative procedures.

• Negotiating the coalition agreement was not an easy process, revealing the need to foster a culture of debate and communication in the legislature. It took a lot of effort to overcome the lack of willingness to compromise and bring MPs to the negotiating table. But everyone was proud with the result at the end.

On reforms

• We have to think about strengthening the capacity of the government as neither the Presidential Administration nor any council on reforms can substitute for the government. A proper structure of the Cabinet needs to be built and efficient decision-making process set up. This is what should be done in the first place, and this is why we are in the parliament.

• Judicial reform will not be easy. The current system has been in place for 23 years and become “independently corrupt”. The best solution would be to fire all 8,500 judges and appoint totally new people. Several political forces support this approach but it will still take several years to clean and change the system.

On sovereignty

• The Minsk II agreement obliges Ukraine to revise its constitution. For me, it is absolutely inappropriate that three other states tell Ukraine what it should do with its constitution. Russian President Putin has toyed with the idea of changing the Ukrainian constitution for a long time. As a result, foreign diplomats have lost track and started to comment on the Ukrainian constitution as if it were their internal affair.

• The Ukrainian constitution belongs solely to the Ukrainian people and no one else, and only the Ukrainian people can decide what kind of state they need, unitary or federal, and what languages should be spoken.