The Ministry of Justice presented updated platform "Online Monitoring 2.0"

On 8 July, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine presented a new procedure for legal monitoring and an updated Online Monitoring Platform 2.0 at the event "Content and Form of Legal Monitoring". The platform is a digital tool for collecting and analysing information in the framework of monitoring legal acts implemented by the Ministry of Justice with the support of EU Project "Pravo-Justice".

Oleksandr Banchuk, Deputy Minister of Justice, noted that thanks to the Online Monitoring Platform, everyone can participate in shaping state legal policy by submitting their suggestions and comments on a particular law, its articles or other regulatory acts. He also noted that this year, the scope of monitoring is expanding owing to the Law On Administrative Procedure.

"We are simplifying and improving the format of online monitoring. Anyone can easily state their position on certain problems in the respective areas of legal regulation by contacting the Ministry of Justice and receiving a quick response," he said.

He expressed the hope that thanks to the timely updates of the Platform at the end of the reporting period, it will be possible to get better monitoring results.

Asier Santillan Luzuriaga, Head of Section "Good Governance and Rule of Law" at the EU Delegation to Ukraine, said that the updated Online Monitoring Platform is an accessible, user-friendly and inclusive online tool that helps develop the rule of law in Ukraine. It is also valuable in the context of Ukraine's EU accession negotiations.

"An online legal monitoring tool that operates in a transparent, accountable, inclusive and effective manner can contribute to improving the capacity of the Ministry of Justice and the Verkhovna Rada to implement a quality, evidence-based policy-making approach in the context of the accession negotiations in general," he said.

According to him, monitoring can be scaled up to cover other areas not directly related to the justice sector.

Oksana Tsymbrivska, Team Leader of EU Project Pravo-Justice, said that aligning Ukrainian legislation to EU legislation is a long process. At the same time, ensuring that the provisions are implemented in practice is essential, and this is the top priority.

"Monitoring is a tool that helps determine what works and what doesn't," she said.

Oksana Tsymbrivska also noted that the Online Monitoring Platform makes it possible to get feedback from users.

"Not only the legal community, but anyone can participate in lawmaking because it is an open platform," she said, emphasising that the online tool is unique.

Oleksandr Oliinyk, Director of the Directorate of Justice and Criminal Justice, spoke about legal monitoring, its updated procedure, and the topics to be included in the Monitoring Report 2024. They include:

• judicial control over the observance of timelines in bankruptcy proceedings;
• Amending Article 382 of the Criminal Code to extend the range of court decisions, which, if not enforced, result in criminal responsibility imposed by a ruling of an investigating judge;
• Challenges related to сomlpex and in-depth expert examinations; conditions for termination of a judge's resignation;
• Enforcement of decisions on confiscation of property;
• practical implementation of different approaches to determining the place of engaging a defence lawyer to provide free secondary legal aid to the accused (suspects), etc.

Oleksandr Oliinyk noted that the Ministry of Justice analyses the efficiency of legislation and, as a result of this process, has been presenting Monitoring Reports since 2019.

"As of today, the Directorate of Justice and Criminal Justice has conducted eight monitoring exercises. Throughout monitoring, legal research practices have been improved and enhanced. In particular, collecting data for the last Monitoring Report was automated for the first time because an online platform for collecting and analysing information was introduced in 2023," said the Director of the Directorate of Justice and Criminal Justice.

Yehor Razohrieiev, Director of the Directorate for Digital Development, Digital Transformation and Digitalisation, presented the main innovations of the Online Monitoring Platform 2.0 and demonstrated its updated features.

According to Yehor Razohrieiev, this monitoring makes it much easier to participate in improving Ukrainian legislation and shaping the state's legal policy in general.

"Introducing the Online Monitoring platform has made it possible to make the production of a monitoring report 100% digital and improve the quality of draft concepts and regulations," said the Director of the Directorate for Digital Development, Digital Transformation and Digitalisation.

Therefore, according to Yehor Razohrieiev, the Ministry of Justice has improved the platform by Therefore, according to Yehor Razohrieiev, the Ministry of Justice has improved the platform and achieved the following results:

• an extended list of areas subject to monitoring (a new module to receive proposals in the block "Administrative Procedure");
• system stability is ensured;
• a technical support module was introduced;
• there is now more extended functionality. In particular, it is now possible to track the status of proposals and customise questionnaires for users.

Currently, more than 2,500 users have registered on the platform to submit their proposals to improve legislation, and more and more users are registering. To learn more about the Online Monitoring Platform and to submit proposals to amend legislation, please follow the link: https://platformonline.com.ua/