The President of Ukraine has signed Law No. 3590-IX, “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine ‘On Local Self-Government in Ukraine’ regarding ensuring transparency of local self-government” (bill No. 6401).
The proposed provisions allow for more effective utilization of community and local council resources, promptly informing residents of adopted decisions and current information about the community’s activities, assets, and resources, which will contribute to the development and strengthening of the community.
The implementation of the law’s provisions will have a positive impact on the capacity, transparency, and accountability of local self-government bodies, allowing councils to relieve themselves from requests regarding the rationale behind adopted decisions, and facilitating citizen involvement in addressing local affairs.
The changes envisaged in the document include:
- Video recording of council plenary sessions and sessions of the council’s standing committees.
- Publication of video recordings of sessions that were broadcast on the official website of the council or through other means (Facebook, YouTube, etc.).
- Live streaming of council plenary sessions and sessions of the council’s standing committees (after the termination of martial law) on the Internet in real-time.
- Preservation of video recordings of sessions with subsequent storage for at least 5 years.
- Publication of draft agendas, conclusions, recommendations, and protocols of meetings of the council’s standing committees containing the results of roll-call votes.
- Publication on the unified state web portal of open data and on the official websites of local self-government bodies of public information about property objects, regular updating of such information, including the results of inventory.
Law No. 3590-IX enters into force on the day following its publication.
The provisions regarding video recording, storage, and publication of video recordings of council plenary sessions and sessions of the council’s standing committees come into force three months from the date of publication, while the provisions of the law regarding the live streaming of council plenary sessions and sessions of the council’s standing committees come into force 30 days from the cessation or cancellation of martial law in Ukraine.