Online Monitoring Platform: Legislative Monitoring in One Click

For the fifth year in a row, the Ministry of Justice has been systematically identifying problems in Ukrainian legislation and developing recommendations for their elimination. This process has been called the monitoring of the implementation and analysis of the effectiveness of regulatory acts, based on the findings of which a monitoring report is published. How is it structured and what is it for?

The legislative monitoring has been carried out by the Directorate of Justice and Criminal Justice of the Ministry of Justice with the support of international partners, in particular EU Project Pravo-Justice, with the aim of forming a legal policy that allows comprehensive and thoughtful implementation of legislative changes. It is currently taking place in the areas of legal regulation of bankruptcy; enforcement of court decisions; forensics; judicial system and judiciary; criminal justice, and free legal aid. It is composed of several stages. This includes, in particular, the collection of information on the state of legal regulation in a certain area; a thorough analysis of identified problems; and the preparation of a monitoring report on the effectiveness of adopted regulatory and legal acts. As a matter of fact, based on its results, proposals on improving the regulatory and legislative framework are prepared, if necessary.

Each of the stages is accompanied by a thorough study of the state of regulatory and legal framework; judicial practice; opinions of the professional community; research findings; statistical data; international experience, etc. Thus, as of today, based on the results of the monitoring, it has become possible to develop several draft laws, including the following which are worth mentioning:

• “On Forensics Activity” No. 6284 (registered in the Verkhovna Rada);
• “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts Regarding the Digitization of the Judiciary and Improvement of Writ Proceedings in Civil Jurisdiction” No. 9090 (being considered by the Verkhovna Rada);
• “On Amendments to Some Laws of Ukraine Regarding Digitalization of Enforcement Proceedings” No. 9363 (recommended by the Legal Policy Committee for the first reading).

Over the short period of its existence, the monitoring of the implementation and analysis of the effectiveness of the regulatory and legislative framework has significantly evolved. Thus, from the very beginning, all the above-mentioned processes actually were implemented “manually” and took place in paper form. Instead, they hit a new peak in April 2023, when the Online Monitoring Platform became operational. After all, the IT product introduced by the Directorate of Digital Development, Digital Transformations, and Digitization actually automates the collection and analysis of information within the framework of preparing a monitoring report. Moreover, it provides an opportunity for everyone, not only the professional community members, to exercise a direct influence on the legal policy formation process; and for specialists of the Ministry of Justice – to quickly and efficiently process all proposals for changes to legislation. Citizens living abroad can also participate in the process. Therefore, the platform has become a unique tool that helps developing high-quality and data-informed regulatory and legal acts in certain areas of legal regulation.

Thus, more than 1,200 users have registered on the Platform since six months that the Platform is in place; they have permanent accounts and maintain constant connection with the reform specialists. More than 400 responses to questionnaires have also been received since then, alongside 85 proposals as to the improvement of the existing regulations. After having reviewed them, the Ministry of Justice identified 24 problems in the existing regulations and laws, which will be covered within the work on the monitoring report on this year.

Thus, being a modern IT solution, the Online Monitoring Platform’s operation becomes especially important in the process of legislative drafting and eliminating legislative gaps. It contributes to a more effective and transparent process of monitoring of Ukrainian legislation in order to develop good-quality changes. In the future, it is planned to expand the scope of legislative monitoring and integrate it into the work of other subjects having legislative initiative. It is expected that the platform will be further tuned up with its functionality being also expanded while taking into account the needs of users.

The text was first published in the permanent blog of EU Project Pravo-Justice at LB.ua