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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
1 September the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine began the 16 session. For now, traditionally in the session hall on Hrushevsky, 5 under the glass dome. However, because air raid alerts are happening almost constantly in the capital, already before the session opened parliamentarians were talking about the need to provide a “backup” voting option. During air raid warnings MPs leave the hall, where electronic voting consoles are set up at their workplaces.
The Rada Apparatus has already set up an alternative location where MPs will be able to vote in an electronic app on a phone or tablet after personal identification. This is being done so the parliament’s lawmaking work is not paralyzed by the alarms. Whether this contradicts the Constitution and other laws, and why some MPs opposed the “Rada on a smartphone,” read in the LB.ua article.
“Katrusya’s cinema hall” as an alternative to the session hall
Before the session began, Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk showed parliamentary journalists the alternative meeting hall and the test smartphone voting system.
He explained that during an air raid alert “we must interrupt work and go to the shelter. Clearly, this takes a huge amount of productive time. Since the number and duration of attacks have increased, this can effectively lead to paralysis. That’s why we will offer MPs an alternative option.”
MPs are being asked to go to the hall on the ground floor, where coordination councils usually meet before sessions of faction and committee heads with the Rada leadership. This hall, with a long large table in the middle and comfortable green chairs in the corridors, has long been called “Katrusya’s cinema hall.” That name stuck among journalists and politicians because the hall has a large screen, on which before the full-scale war they used to broadcast coordination council meetings with their arguments, emotional speeches, and disputes on camera.
This hall cannot accommodate more than 300 MPs, so ordinary chairs were additionally installed around the perimeter. And, according to the speaker, MPs will be able to stay in adjacent rooms that are also equipped for holding plenary meetings.
“Backup” workstations for 368 parliamentarians are already ready, but their number can be increased to 392. Importantly, the hall has conditions for broadcasting sessions. So there is no talk of returning to a closed format.
MPs will be offered two options: voting by a show of hands and in a specially developed online system. In this system there is the ability to view the agenda, vote, and check voting results. Parliamentarians can also sign up to speak and check the queue. To enter the system, you must connect to a closed network. Then you need to scan a QR code, enter data that are provided personally to each MP, and the QR code will change daily, which makes voting in the absence of the person in the hall impossible.
According to Rada Apparatus head Vyacheslav Shtuchnyi, development of this voting system began at the start of the full-scale war. “We understand all the security challenges associated with voting. No additional budget funds were spent on this system; it was developed with our own efforts,” Shtuchnyi added.
The Verkhovna Rada did not leave the session hall even in the early days of the full-scale invasion. Although on the morning of 24 February 2022 the deputies were gathered near the shelter by the Motherland Monument. However, as MPs told LB.ua, the meeting in the shelter did not take place because the gathering place was publicized on social networks by MP Oleksii Honcharenko of European Solidarity. Therefore MPs returned to the Rada building, where they adopted the decision to impose martial law.
MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak (Holos) says that this week testing of the voting system in the underground shelter is scheduled. “Each faction will test separately… The system works exclusively in the hall; if you leave (for example, to another shelter or the canteen) it disconnects, and re-identification by QR code is required. The main thing is the room is uncomfortable. Especially for 330 MPs. People will sit tightly. So it is suitable for critical votes 1–2 times a week, but not for prolonged stays,” he said.
Not all MPs received the idea of alternative voting favorably. Thus, leader of European Solidarity Petro Poroshenko, speaking from the podium after the opening of the 16 session, called to “stop any talk about voting by phones in basements.” According to Poroshenko, this directly contradicts the Constitution.
Pavlo Bakunets of the Dovira group also emphasized that parliamentarians must fulfill their duties and vote directly in the Verkhovna Rada building. In his words, defenders and teachers “do not change their workplace” because of alarms. MPs should work the same way.
And former speaker Dmytro Razumkov ironically suggested voting “from Monaco.”
How and where MPs must vote under the law
Article 84 of the Constitution of Ukraine obliges a people’s deputy to vote at sessions of the Verkhovna Rada and to do so personally. This provision is detailed by the laws “On the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine” and “On the Status of a People’s Deputy of Ukraine.”
According to 2 of the Rules of Procedure, the Verkhovna Rada holds sessions in the parliament building on Hrushevsky, 5 in Kyiv. (The “cinema hall” is also located at this address in the main Verkhovna Rada building.) Holding a session elsewhere is possible by decision of at least 226 people’s deputies. The Rules require an MP to register in a way that excludes the possibility of someone else registering his card. A deputy must vote personally—using the electronic system, and if it is impossible to use it, by a show of hands. There is also the option of secret ballot—in that case the deputy submits a ballot.
Despite fairly strict rules on personal voting, the problem of voting with someone else’s cards or the fictitious “presence” of absent deputies was not completely resolved. Although compared to times when absent deputies’ cards were often used to vote, and some political forces took their MPs’ cards so they would not violate “faction discipline,” the situation is now better.
Amendments to the Rules of Procedure needed to launch the alternative system were adopted in February 2023. Now during martial law the Rada operates in the mode of one plenary meeting. Not separate daily sessions, but effectively one session with breaks that continues until the termination of martial law or the start of the next regular session. The chair of the Verkhovna Rada (or their deputy) announces a break and determines the time, place of resumption of the session and, if necessary, the method of MPs’ voting, with notification of the coordination council of factions.
During an air raid alert the presiding officer must interrupt the session. It resumes fifteen minutes after the all-clear except in cases when the alert lasts more than three consecutive hours.
Voting outside the Rada: this has happened before
There have been cases in the history of Ukrainian parliamentarism of voting outside the Rada on Hrushevsky 5. The first was in January 2000. Then in the third convocation of the Verkhovna Rada there was a split between the parliamentary majority and the left minority, which supported then-Speaker Oleksandr Tkachenko. The majority gathered in the Ukrainian House and voted to change the Rada leadership. A month later, on the first day of the new session, majority deputies again gathered in the Ukrainian House under the chairmanship of Viktor Medvedchuk. Ivan Plyushch was elected chair of the Rada, Medvedchuk first deputy, Stepan Havrysh deputy chair, and leadership of several committees was changed.
The PR and CPU “off-site” meeting 4 April 2013
The second case occurred 4 April 2013. During Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency and Volodymyr Rybak’s chairmanship of the Rada, opposition deputies blocked the session hall on Hrushevsky 5. In response, majority deputies gathered in the conference hall of the building No. 6-8 on Bankova near the Presidential Administration. 244 people’s deputies registered. Separately they adopted a procedural decision to hold the meeting in that room, and because the “Rada” system was absent they voted by a show of hands. That day they adopted 9 laws in total and took 13 bills as a basis. The legitimacy of the meeting was challenged in court, but the Higher Administrative Court decided that holding it on Bankova complied with the law.
Remotely—no, not under the dome—yes, smartphone—better not: what lawyers say
In 2020 the Verkhovna Rada already tested online voting through Microsoft Teams. This was related to quarantine due to the coronavirus epidemic, during which deputies could not gather in the session hall. At that time, then-deputy speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk and MP Mykola Stefanchuk (Servant of the People) even drafted bill No. 3250 on online meetings. Servant of the People faction leader Davyd Arakhamia conducted test “simulated sessions”: about fifty deputies connected to Microsoft Teams simultaneously and voted by a show of hands. The experiment was technically successful, but the Rada’s Main Expert Directorate pointed to constitutional risks (violating the personal voting requirement, lack of guarantees of free expression of will), and the bill was withdrawn from consideration.
A few days before the full-scale invasion, MP Kira Rudik (Holos) told LB.ua that MPs’ tablets had already been installed with software for remote voting. She also turned in her tablet for “reflashing” and received it back with the relevant module. Rudik associated this with the fact that the Servant of the People faction had at that time lost its single-party majority (226 votes). She expressed concern that this opened the possibility either for “tablet” voting instead of the deputy, or for participation in voting by deputies who had left the country.
Kira Rudik
The catalyst then was President Volodymyr Zelensky’s instruction at a Servant of the People faction meeting on 14 February to change the legislation to introduce remote voting in the Verkhovna Rada. Servant of the People supported this initiative, though they acknowledged risks of cyberattacks and coercion on MPs. The opposition, however, was categorically against it: MP Serhii Vlasenko (Batkivshchyna) recalled that the Constitutional Court had already clarified: voting must take place “in a specific place at a specific time.”
Lawyers say the alternative voting system for prolonged air raid alerts does not directly contradict the Constitution, the Rules of Procedure, and other laws. But only if certain requirements are met.
Former deputy head of the Central Election Commission and lawyer Andrii Magera told LB.ua that “two conditions must be met. First, the physical presence in one place of no fewer than 226 deputies (this is the minimum necessary number to make decisions). Second, verification of each deputy’s participation in voting. That is, each time physical presence must be verified so there is a quorum for the meeting and to prevent distortion of voting results.” In contrast, online voting without physical presence, according to Magera, is unacceptable—it directly contradicts the Constitution.
Andrii Magera
Magera says it is worth organizing an analogue of the ballot or hand-voting system in any other premises. However, he considers voting via phone—even with the deputy present in the shelter—an unsuccessful option. Mobile phones use connections from commercial mobile operators. This creates a risk of third-party interference and distortion of voting results.
“The Constitution does not directly define the method of voting. It only says that voting must be personal. How to guarantee in a mobile phone that the vote will not be distorted—that’s the question. I certainly wouldn’t play with that,” Magera warns.
According to Magera, the law does not require MPs to be on Hrushevsky, 5—it is possible to use premises in Kyiv or another city or village in Ukraine. This is agreed by former MP, lawyer and current Kyiv City Council deputy Leonid Yemets, who emphasizes that the only clear constitutional requirement is personal voting. Any alternative voting system must be built so that it is possible to verify that the person voting is indeed that person and not someone impersonating them. “As soon as a situation arises where it is impossible to establish the personal nature of the vote, the decision can be challenged in court for violating the Constitution,” the politician warns.
Leonid Yemets describes how a system for verifying personal voting might work. Some committee meetings of the Verkhovna Rada are held online, and each participant personally states their name on camera and announces how they vote. Theoretically, such a system can also be circumvented, Yemets admits, but in that case law enforcement agencies should deal with the violators of the law.
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