Verkhovna Rada
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is the unicameral parliament of Ukraine. It consists of 450 deputies presided over by a speaker. The Verkhovna Rada meets in the Verkhovna Rada building in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.
The Verkhovna Rada developed out of the systems of the republican representative body known in the Soviet Union as the Supreme Soviet, which was first established on 26 June 1938 as a type of legislature of the Ukrainian SSR after the dissolution of the Congress of Soviets of the Ukrainian SSR.
The 12th convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic issued the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, introduced elements of a market economy and political liberalization, and officially changed the numeration of its sessions, proclaiming itself the first convocation of the "Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine". The current parliament is the ninth convocation. Because of the war in Donbas and Russia's unilateral occupation and annexation of Crimea, elections for the constituencies situated in Donbas and Crimea were not held in the 2014 and 2019 elections; hence the current composition of the Verkhovna Rada consists of 424 deputies.
The Verkhovna Rada previously used a mixed voting system, in which 50% of the seats were distributed under party-list proportional representation with 5% election threshold and the other 50% through first-past-the-post voting in single-member constituencies. The 50/50 mixed elections method was used in the 2002, 2012, 2014, and 2019 elections; however, in 2006 and 2007, the elections were held under a proportional system only. According to the election law that became valid on 1 January 2020, the next election to the Verkhovna Rada, expected to be held after the Russian invasion of Ukraine ends, will be held under a proportional system.
Name
The name Rada means "council". The institution originated in the time of Kievan Rus' and then represented a council of boyars and of the higher clergy. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Zaporozhian Cossacks used the term to refer to the meetings where major decisions were made; the Cossacks elected new councils by popular vote. The Ukrainian People's Republic, between 17 March 1917 and 29 April 1918, had a Central Rada. The West Ukrainian People's Republic and the Ukrainian government-in-exile each had a UNRada.The current name of the parliament derives from the Soviet practice of referring to the national parliament and parliaments of its constituent republics' Supreme Soviets. Like in many other Soviet republics, Verkhovna Rada is a localized version of this term used in the Ukrainian SSR. After Ukraine regained independence in 1991, the term Verkhovnaya Rada had been in use in both Russian and Ukrainian-based russophone media as a loan translation of the Ukrainian term. Verkhovna, the feminine form of the adjective "верховний" meaning supreme, derives from the Ukrainian word "верх" meaning "top".
Another name, less commonly used, is the Parliament of Ukraine.
History
1917–1990
- Central Rada in 1917–18
- Ukrainian National Rada in 1918
- Labour Congress of Ukraine in 1919
- Rada of the Republic in 1921
The first elections to the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR took place on 26 June 1938. The first session of the parliament took place in Kyiv from 25 July to 28 July 1938. The first chairman of the council was Mykhailo Burmystenko, who later died during World War II. In 1938, a Presidium was elected by the council that was chaired by Leonid Korniyets. The Presidium represented the council whenever it was not in session.
During the war, the Presidium was evacuated to the city of Saratov in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. On 29 June 1943, the Presidium issued an order postponing elections for the new convocation for one year while extending the first convocation. On 8 January 1944, the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, in agreement with the Communist Party, decided to relocate the Presidium of the Supreme Council from Kharkiv to Kyiv. New elections were scheduled for 9 February 1947 for the Council.
File:Tymoshenko Appointment Feb04 2005.jpg|thumb|Yulia Tymoshenko was appointed Prime Minister of Ukraine in the Rada on 4 February 2005.
1990–present
Until 24 August 1991, the Verkhovna Rada kept the name Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR.The first partially free elections to the Verkhovna Rada and local councils of people's deputies were held on 4 March 1990. Although the Communist Party still remained in control, a "Democratic Bloc" was formed by numerous parties, including the People's Movement of Ukraine, Helsinki Watch Committee of Ukraine, Party of Greens of Ukraine, and many others.
The twelfth convocation of the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR issued the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine on 16 July 1990, and declared Ukrainian independence on 24 August 1991, at approximately 6 p.m. local time. At the time, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada was Leonid Kravchuk. The Act of Ukrainian Independence was overwhelmingly supported in a national referendum held on 1 December 1991. On 12 September 1991, the parliament adopted the law "On the Legal Succession of Ukraine". Thus, the VR became the Supreme Council of Ukraine.
The Constitution of Ukraine was adopted by the thirteenth convocation of the Verkhovna Rada on 28 June 1996, at approximately 9 a.m. local time. The parliament's fourteenth convocation officially changed the numbering of the convocations, proclaiming itself the third convocation of the Verkhovna Rada. After the Orange Revolution, constitutional amendments were adopted in December 2004, by the fourth convocation of the Verkhovna Rada. On 1 October 2010, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine overturned the 2004 Amendments, considering them unconstitutional. On 21 February 2014, parliament reinstated the December 2004 amendments to the constitution.
In 2017 and 2018, the website of the Verkhovna Rada was the most popular among all websites of the parliaments of UN member states.
In 2025, the Rada resumed live broadcasts of parliamentary sessions following a three-year ban it imposed due to security reasons following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Location
The Verkhovna Rada meets in a neo-classical building within Constitution Square on Mykhaila Hrushevsky Street, Kyiv. The building adjoins Mariinskyi Park and the 18th-century Mariinskyi Palace, the official residence of the President of Ukraine.After the transfer of the capital of the Ukrainian SSR from Kharkiv to Kyiv in 1934, several government buildings were planned for the city. In 1936, a contest for the construction of the parliament building was won by architect Volodymyr Zabolotny.
The original building was constructed from 1936 to 1938. Destroyed in the Second World War, the building was reconstructed from 1945 to 1947. The rebuilt glass dome is one metre higher than the original.
Other locations
- Palace Ukraina, site of President Leonid Kuchma's inauguration
- Ukrainian House
- Building of budget committee
Mission and authority
In Ukraine there are no requirements for the minimum number of signatures to register a bill. In general the parliament adopts about 200 bills per year. An average of five to six bills are registered daily in parliament. As a result of this in the spring of 2019 parliament had more than 10 thousand registered and under consideration bills it had yet to debate.
All procedural regulations are contained in the Law on Regulations of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The latest version of the document was adopted on 16 December 2012, in which through the initiative of the President of Ukraine amendments were made concerning registration and voting by parliamentarians. 2012 became a year of numerous changes in regards to the document, among which were changes to the election of the chairman. Bills are usually considered following the procedure of three readings; the President of Ukraine must sign a law before it can be officially promulgated.
Until 2017 the parliament appointed and dismissed judges from their posts and permitted detention or arrest of judges.
Composition
The Verkhovna Rada is a unicameral legislature with 450 people's deputies elected on the basis of equal and direct universal suffrage through a secret ballot.Parliamentary factions, groups, and parties
All members of parliament are grouped into parliamentary factions and groups. Members of parliament who were elected from a certain party list are not necessarily members of that party. Parties that break the 5% electoral threshold form factions in the parliament. The formation of official parliamentary factions is regulated by the Verkhovna Rada's rules and procedures.Only 15 or more deputies may form a parliamentary faction and an MP may be a member of only one faction at a time. The chairman and his two vice-chairmen may not be the heads of factions. Under current parliamentary rules a faction of non-partisan politicians can not be smaller than the smallest faction of a political party.
Deputies who are expelled from factions or decide to leave them to become individual lawmakers; individual deputies are allowed to unite into parliamentary groups of people's deputies that again have at least 15 deputies. Several influential parties have been founded after originally being formed as a faction in the Verkhovna Rada, for example, the Party of Regions, All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" and Labour Ukraine.
Each parliamentary faction or group appoints a leader.
Since the Imperative mandate provisions of the Ukrainian constitution came into effect again in February 2014 a political party can withdraw a parliamentary mandate if one of their MPs leaves its parliamentary faction. MPs who defected from one faction to another were derided as "tushky". The insult was applied to MPs allegedly bribed to switch factions.
Parliament is primarily male. Women accounted for 8.5% of MPs in 2010, 10% after the 2012 parliamentary election and 11.1% after the 2014 parliamentary election, the highest in history. Conversely, female representation in national legislatures within the EU was 25% as of 2014. Female representation rose considerably after the 2019 elections, achieving a 21% female Rada.
On 20 March 2022, the activities of the main opposition party, Opposition Platform — For Life were suspended by the National Security and Defense Council for the period of martial law due to allegations of having ties to Russia made by the Council during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.