In April, the Parliament adopted a number of important initiatives. In particular, MPs voted for the State Budget amendments, and approved the reduce in revenue and increase in expenditure. According to Prime Minister Denys Shmygal, this decision was necessary to allocate additional funds to fight coronavirus. The Parliament has approved changes that allow the completion of decentralization process. In particular, the Cabinet of Ministers was entitled to designate administrative centers of territorial communities and to approve territories of territorial communities. This will allow to hold 2020 first local elections in UTCs simultaneously with the next local elections, which are scheduled for October.

MPs have approved a law aimed against so-called "legislative spam" or, to be more precise, "amendment spam". The law countering abuse of parliamentary powers in law-making introduces a special procedure for consideration of draft laws in the second reading. This procedure will limit the number of amendments and proposals that can be put for consideration and voting in the Parliament. 

In the first reading, the Parliament voted for draft law that dicreases significantly the election deposit for parties which nominated a list of candidates fo oblast and city councils (in cities having 90 thousand voters or more), mayoral candidates (in cities having 90 thousand voters or more), and for independent mayoral candidates (in cities having 90 thousand voters or more). 

MPs created a Temporary Investigative Commission to investigate into affirmed corruption cases published in mass media, which involve state officials and caused big losses in State Budget. They also appealed to foreign states and parliamentary assemblies of international organizations to condemn the continuing armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.

Besides that, the Verkhovna Rada rejected resolutions seeking to repel the Law on Free Land Market, passed in March. MPs registered 13 resolutions with this goal, but none of them received the necessary votes. MPs also didn't support resolutions aimed to cancel the Law assuring completion of decentralisation and to abolish the Law against the "legislative spam".

Parliament and quarantine

As the quarantine was announced in Ukraine on March 12, MPs approved the Resolution on the organization of the Verkhovna Rada's work during the quarantine (#3278) on March 17. According to this resolution, the MPs decided to work until April 3 only in committees, commissions, and parliamentary factions (groups of MPs).

However, during an extraordinary plenary session on March 30, the MPs amended the Resolution. According to the amendments, they decided to work during the quarantine period only in committees, commissions, and parliamentary factions (groups of MPs), without time constraints. This decision was based on the fact that the quarantine period was extended once and it is possible that it could be extended again.

This format of work does not exclude extraordinary parliamentary meetings. An extraordinary meeting may be initiated by the President of Ukraine or a third part of Ukrainian MPs. Extraordinary parliamentary meetings were held 4 times in April (on 13, 16, 24 and 30 of April).

Draft laws 

MPs have registered 141 draft laws and resolutions in April. MPs submitted the biggest part of them (133, which is 94.3%), the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine submitted 8 (5.7%). 

Ukrainian Parliament has adopted 18 draft laws. 10 of them were submitted by the President of Ukraine, 7 by MPs of Ukraine, and 1 by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

How factions voted

The Parliament had 71 votings in April, and the "Rada"system button was pressed 30 thousand 33 times. MPs voted "for" the most often (55% of the total number of the button being pushed). MPs "abstained" in 19.7% of cases, and voted "against" in 6%. In 11.8% of cases deputies were absent and 7.6% did not vote. 

MPs from the Servant of the People have the biggest percentage of "for" votes (67.4%), the Dovira group of MPs is on the second place (60.2%). The Batkivshchyna faction and the Opposition Platform - For Life voted "for"the least often, 38.3% and 29.8% respectively.

 Parties Holos (11.7%) and the Opposition Platform - For Life (10.5%) vote "against" the most often. The For the Future and the Dovira groups of MPs have the smallest percentage of "against" votes (1.4% and 0.5% respectively).

Parties European Solidarity (38.9%) and the Opposition Platform - For Life (23.1%) have the biggest percentage of "abstained" votes. The For the Future group has the smallest percentage of "abstained", 12.5%.

Against the faction line

Oleksandr Dubinskyi from the Servant of the People follows the party line the least often in current Parliament. Thus, his choice differ from the party line in 74% of votes.

Petro Poroshenko follows the party line the least often among MPs of the European Solidarity. His votes contrary to the party line reach 63.2%.

Yurii Zahorondii from the Opposition Platform - For Life is the one who votes contrary to the party line the most often. His "rebellion" percentage reaches almost 60.3%. 

In the For the Future group of MPs, Viktor Baloha votes on his own the most often. Thus, he voted contrary to the party line in 50.3% of cases. 

In the Holos faction, Sviatoslav Vakarchuk votes contrary to the line of party the most often. The MP has 47.4% of such votes. 

Oleh Kulinich is the rebellion in the Dovira group of MPs. In 43.2% of cases, he voted against the position of the group. 

In the Batkivshchyna faction, Serhii Tarutavotes contrary to the line of party the most often, and has 28.5% of such votes. 

Absent from voting 

In April, 60 MPs missed more than 30% of the vote in Parliament. According to law amendments approved in October 2019, the attendance of MPs on plenary sessions will now be measured by their participation in voting. That is, if an MP does not vote, then he is not present at the session. The MPs who miss more than 30% of the votes shall not be reimbursed for the expenses related to the exercise of their parliamentary powers for the respective calendar month. Such a decision should be taken by the Committee on the Rules of Parliamentary Ethics and Organization of Work.

16 MPs missed 100% of votings: Andrii Kozhemiakin (Batkivshchyna), Andrii Kholodov (Servant of the People), Anzhelika Labunska (Batkivshchyna), Vadym Novynskyi (non-faction), Vadym Stolar (Opposition Platform - For Life), Valerii Dubil (Batkivshchyna), Viktor Baloha (For the Future), Vitalii Danilov (Batkivshchyna), Hryhorii Nemyria (Batkivshchyna), Mustafa Dzhemiliev (European Solidarity), Oleh Makarov (Holos), Oleksandra Ustinova (Holos), Oles Dovhyi (non-faction), Serhii Vlasenko (Batkivshchyna), Serhii Rudyk (non-faction), Serhii Taruta (Batkivshchyna).

Speeches

Leader of the Batkivshchyna Yulia Tymoshenko, spoke the longest in April, 23 minutes 36 seconds. Oleksandr Koltunovych (Opposition Platform - For Life) spoke for 9 minutes 55 seconds, Ivan Krulko (Batkivshchyna) - for 9 minutes 5 seconds. Iryna Herashchenko (European Solidarity) has a little less duration of speeches - 8 minutes 57 seconds. Co-Head of the For the future group of MPs Taras Batenko has speeches with a total duration of 7 minutes 17 seconds.