On October 22, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy hosted a roundtable discussion on the 1st in the history of Ukraine electronic petition to the President of Ukraine, which gained the required 25 thousand votes – “To legislate the right of Ukrainian citizens to protection”.
Recall that President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko on 24.09.2015 in his official response to the 1st petition informed about the instruction to the Constitutional Commission “to comprehensively consider the relevant constitutional proposal“, in particular by “Convening a meeting of the working group of the Constitutional Commission on the rights, freedoms and duties of man and citizen with the involvement of the author of the electronic petition, representatives of various political forces, government agencies, civil society institutions, legal scholars, experts.“
The author of the petition, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the NGO “Ukrainian Gun Owners Association” took part in the round table Georgiy Uchaykin, Member of the Constitutional Commission, Chairman of the Board of NGO “Agency for Legislative Initiatives”, Director of the Ukrainian School of Political Studies, Igor Kohut, Consultant of the Constitutional Commission, Judge of the US Court of Federal Claims, Doctor of Law Bohdan Futey, retired judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Mykola Savenko, Executive Director of the Rule of Law Research Center, Honored Lawyer of Ukraine, attorney at law Volodymyr Sushchenko, Head of the group “Electronic Democracy” of the Reanimation Package of Reforms, Head of the Center for Innovations Development of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Serhiy Loboyko, vice-president of the Ukrainian Federation of Applied Shooting Sports, head of the legal group of drafters “On Civilian Weapons and Ammunition”, lawyer Vladyslav Zbaranskyi, lawyer Mykola Orekhovskyi, doctoral student of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, sociologist Dmytro Khutkyi, coordinator of the group “Electronic Democracy” of the Reanimation Package of Reforms Volodymyr Liubarskyi.
Members of the Constitutional Commission, professors of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy – Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine (retired) Volodymyr Vasylenko, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine, Judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (retired) Mykola Kozyubra greeted the participants of the round table.
The participants of the round table, in particular legal experts, supported the main idea of the petition – to enshrine in the Constitution of Ukraine the right of citizens to armed protection of life, property and security of the state. Also, all the participants agreed on the need to develop in Ukraine a culture of public debate on socially important issues, which are drawn attention to by successful electronic petitions.
In particular, an important step on this path should be the expected official public debate on the platform of the Constitutional Commission and in the future – in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. We decided to address the organizers of the debates in the Constitutional Commission with a proposal to provide them with the necessary assistance and participate in the debates.
The organizers of the 1st expert discussion were the Center for Innovations Development of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, the Center for Rule of Law Studies of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and the Ukrainian Gun Owners Association.
From the Editor: The meeting of the working group of the Constitutional Commission on the rights, freedoms and duties of man and citizen will be held on October 27.