The bill “on the temporarily occupied territories” annihilates the Minsk Agreements – Restoring Donbas

10:05 / 28 Jul. 2016 / 419

The new draft law “On temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine” (3593-d) registered in Verhovna Rada could stop the de-escalation of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, and annihilate the Minsk Agreements, ratified by the resolution of the UN Security Council. That is the conclusion of the experts of the public Initiative ‘Restoring Donbas’ by analysing the norms of the aforementioned bill.

According to the document, the deputies propose to consider “occupied territories” not only the Crimea and Sevastopol, but Dontetsk and Luhansk regions. A list of such areas determined by the Security Service mandated to the Cabinet of Ministers.

The Article 5 of the bill relieves the State of Ukraine on the responsibility to protect a human life and health, social protection and pension of a person living on the occupied territory. All these responsibilities go to Russian Federation. The article 15 of the draft law prohibits the provision of fuel and energy resources, and centralized water supply the occupied territory by any institutions.

The lawyers of ‘Restoring Donbas’ admit that the bill violates several articles of the Constitution of Ukraine. Thus, the Article 3 of the Constitution says that an individual, his life and health, honor and dignity, inviolability and security are recognized as the highest social value, and approval and promotion of the rights and freedoms is the main duty of the state. The Article 22 of the Constitution does not permit the restriction of existing rights and freedoms in the adoption of new laws. The Article 46 provides the right to social protection, pensions, social and other benefits.

Besides, the bill is contrary to the Minsk Agreement, namely contrary to paragraph 8 of the Complex measures for the implementation of the Minsk Agreements, adopted on 12 February, 2015 and supported by resolution 2202 (2015) by the UN Security Council on the 7384 th meeting on 17 February 2015.

As noted by Elena Petryaeva, the head of the initiative “Restoring Donbas”, that Ukrainians accustomed to the fact that there’s no legal rules for nation leaders and MPs. However, by registration of this bill they have gone even further. They decided to annihilate a document that is recognized all over the world, the only document that is able to stop the conflict in Donbas somehow. Minsk Agreements recognized by the EU countries and the US as the only possible set of measures to reduce the escalation in Donbas. What do our MPs? They neglect the opinion of Europeans and Americans. They even come into conflict with Ukrainian government, which recently announced a number of positive developments regarding uncontrolled territories. Additionally, Elena Petryaeva noted the incompetence of the authors of the bill in the realities of life in the Donbas as the only resource of water supply in Donetsk region went on both controlled and uncontrolled territorries.

The draft of the law “on the temporarily occupied territories” except the Constitution and laws of Ukraine is contrary to a number of international instruments: the Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This bill does not provide the residents of “temporarily occupied” territories of Ukraine the possibility to go to the territory controlled by the government.

• The Constitution says that the restriction of the rights and freedoms of an individual is permitted only under martial law or a state of emergency. Did we announce martial law ever? This bill is contrary not only to the norms of the Constitution of Ukraine and norms of international law. Therefore I appeal to the authors of the bill to withdraw it, and not to include it in the agenda, – Elena Petryaeva said.

1, 8 million IDP registered according to the Ministry of Social Policy to date of 25 July 2016. Yet there is no any government program, no legislative or regulatory act, which solve the housing problem of internally displaced persons.

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