Rada Adopts Law Banning Pro-Russian Parties

The Verkhovna Rada adopted a law banning pro-Russian parties.

A total of 330 MPs voted for the adoption of bill 7172-1, with the minimum required 226, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

The property of banned parties is transferred to state ownership.

If the court bans the activities of the party, the property, funds and other assets of the party and its structural entities become the property of the state, as stated in the court decision.

The judicial procedure will also change: in the conditions of martial law, cases on the ban of a political party as a court of first instance are under the jurisdiction of the administrative court of appeal in the appellate district, which includes the city of Lviv, instead of the Kyiv District Administrative Court.

And the court of appeal in the case of banning the party will be the Supreme Court, composed of a panel of the Administrative Court of Cassation of at least five judges, the judgment of the Supreme Court in such cases is final and will not be subject to cassation appeal.

In addition, an administrative case to ban a party is decided by the court of first instance within a month after the opening of proceedings; the court of appeal considers the case within a month after the opening of the appeal proceedings.

Article 60 of the regulations of the Verkhovna Rada is supplemented with a new part stating that if the President approves the decision of the National Security and Defense Council to suspend the activities of a political party that formed a parliamentary faction in the Verkhovna Rada, the activities of such a parliamentary faction are terminated from the moment it is announced by the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, and the suspension activity of a parliamentary faction results in the suspension of the rights of this parliamentary faction.

The Cabinet of Ministers, within a month from the date of entry into force of this law, must submit to the Verkhovna Rada a bill on the consequences of a court decision to ban a political party for the status of members of local councils.

As Ukrainian News Agency reported, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy recommended that the Parliament adopt bill 7172-1 as a whole with committee amendments to suspend the activities of the faction formed by the banned party.