New Odesa Charter contains discrepancies with the laws of Ukraine

The Charter of Odesa adopted by the Odesa City Council contains shortcomings that can be considered as violations of the laws of Ukraine in some articles.

This was reported by Serhiy Bondarenko, a journalist and analyst at the NGOs Green Sheet and Center for Public Investigations, on the air of Intent.Insight.

"Let's say that Article Three of the Charter, part one, paragraph seven, states that citizens have the right to participate in the distribution of part of local budget expenditures through the mechanisms of participatory budgeting. However, the Law on Local Self-Government in Article 13-1 provides for the participation of residents in the planning and allocation of funds not of the public budget, not of the participatory budget, but of the entire local budget," the analyst noted.

However, Petro Obukhov, a deputy of the Odesa City Council, noted that the law provides for taking into account the proposals of city residents, and the city council must take them into account.

"This is how it works. The law does not stipulate that we are obliged to implement all the proposals of the citizens. We listen to them and take them into account," the deputy assured.

Another violation of the law, Bondarenko noted, is that the charter has a discrepancy with the Law on Local Self-Government in terms of involving young people in local government.

"The law stipulates that young people can participate in local government from the age of 14, while the charter, in turn, stipulates that capable citizens who have reached the age of eighteen have the right to vote at the general meeting of the conference," the expert noted.

The Statute also provides for self-taxation of the population, but the provision on self-taxation was canceled with the adoption of the Tax Code 10 years ago.

Valeriy Bolgan, host and editor-in-chief of Intent, noted that he also has comments to the Charter that will need to be considered, for example, the document provides that residents of the territorial community have the right to participate in decision-making in Odesa.

"Who are these people? Are they residents of the city? Or residents of the surrounding areas? For example, residents of the Rainbow residential area, which is no longer legally part of Odesa, but they are actually citizens, do they have the right to participate in public discussions and attend sessions? I understand that they do. According to the law, in principle, it is impossible to prohibit any citizen, for example, from entering the city council. In fact, this has happened more than once," the journalist noted.

In response, Petro Obukhov proposed to collect all comments on the current Charter and make changes to the document. According to the councillor, it will be easier to do this in the existing document than in the drafts.

Кирило Бойко