Public officials not to be banned from belonging to a political party

The new draft version of the Law on the Civil Service will not prohibit officials from combining their State positions with membership of a political party.  As reported, the draft law was introduced on 7 April 2011 by the Minister of Justice as part of the administrative reform. It was supposed to “increase the quality of State governance and reduce the level of corruption. The Minister of Justice then particularly emphasized the President’s initiative to depoliticize the Service, although Lavrynovych did go on to say that “for the sake of dialogue with the opposition”, the President would not insist on linking depoliticizing with membership of a political party. 

During the discussion in April it was mainly the norms on depoliticizing the Civil Service and ban on belonging to political parties which came under most attack, from members of all factions in parliament.

The draft bill was passed in its first reading but without three norms, including that banning party membership.

The decision to abandon the norm was one of the 900 amendments made to the original