Press Conference Dedicated to the First Results of the “Online Monitoring” Platform Operation and Its Development Prospects Took Place

On October 5, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine together with the EU Project Pravo-Justice presented the results of the “Online Monitoring” platform. The “Online Monitoring” platform is a project aimed to digitize the process of monitoring the quality of legislation. It gives every Ukrainian the opportunity to change laws that do not work or have become obsolete, and the specialists of the Ministry of Justice to quickly and efficiently process all proposals for changes to the legislation.

Thus, more than 1,200 users have registered on the Platform since six months that the Platform is in place; they can send now their proposals for improving the existing legislation. That was reported by Yehor Razohrieiev, representative of the Ministry of Justice, at the press conference in “Ukrinform”.

“These are users who have permanent accounts and who are constantly in direct contact with the reform specialists. The second important indicator is 20,000 site views per month. We have also received more than 400 responses to questionnaires as part of the work on the monitoring report and 85 proposals on amendments to regulations and laws", said Yehor Razogrieiev.

He also noted that based on the results of processing all the proposals submitted through the platform, 24 problems of regulatory nature have been identified; they will be thoroughly investigated as part of the work on the monitoring report in 2023.

Oleksandr Oliinyk, Director of the Directorate of Justice and Criminal Justice of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, also spoke about qualitative changes resulting from the launch of the Online Platform. He expressed hope that in the future the Platform will become an integral functional component of any state body that is interested in qualitative changes in state legal policy.

For her part, Viktoriia Vasylchuk, Acting State Secretary of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, added that the Platform was a step towards full digitization of the process of legislative drafting.

“This project has become a conflux of various modern trends. It is that we are digitizing many processes in our life, including administrative services and procedures. At the same time, thanks to the Platform, we support the request of Ukrainian society to expand people’s rule and improve existing Ukrainian legislation in accordance with European standards,” noted Viktoriia Vasylchuk.

The presentation was attended by Alban Biaussat, Sector Manager for Justice and Anticorruption, EU Delegation to Ukraine. He emphasized that the digitization of the monitoring process is of particular importance in the context of carrying out reforms on Ukraine’s path to EU membership.

“The EU has been supporting the judicial reform process in Ukraine for a long time, in particular through the EU Project Pravo-Justice. We are also cooperating with the Ministry of Justice on improving the process of legislative drafting, in particular for the digitization of the monitoring. Its goal is to improve legislation that influences the functioning of the justice system in Ukraine. The “Online Monitoring” platform promotes a more transparent legislative process. We are convinced that this pilot innovative tool for the development of legislative initiative projects should be promoted and extended to other areas,” noted Alban Biaussat.

Oksana Tsymbrivska, Country Manager of the EU Project Pravo-Justice, emphasized that the Platform was a unique tool that, above all, helped developing data-informed changes to legislation.

“The first results of the “Online Monitoring” operation have been successful so far. In the view of the above, we can talk about future quality of legislative amendments that can be developed as a result of monitoring. We are talking not only about the speed and ease of use of the Platform, but also about the inclusiveness of the process and the opportunity to hear and listen to opinions and proposals of both professional community and individuals,” pointed out Oksana Tsymbrivska.

She noted that in the future it would also be necessary to focus on strengthening cooperation with other authorities, primarily judicial and legislative branches.

“The monitoring should not always result in legislative changes. One need to realize this and move away from this paradigm. It is important to maintain a dialogue to find the best solution to the identified problem, which will be backed up by a thorough and qualitative analysis, studies based on objective data. This, in turn, can significantly facilitate the legislator’s work in the future,” added Oksana Tsymbrivska.

In addition, the plans for the development of the initiative in 2024 have also been announced at the presentation of the results of the “Online Monitoring” platform. The key tasks include: holding a large-scale information campaign to reach out even more people and stakeholders; technical development of the platform; and integration with other state bodies.

"We understand that the online platform is an IT product that needs to be constantly improved. After six months of operation, we identified the aspects that need to be worked on. Therefore, for its part, EU Project Pravo-Justice will support the Ministry of Justice on its way of improving this tool and contribute to greater and more effective promotion of the initiative,” summarized Oksana Tsymbrivska.