Digitalization of the legislative authority in Ukraine

The article analyses the key doctrinal approaches to the definition of the essence and manifestations of the digitization of legislative authority, which has two closely related sides: technological (covering a series of mutually agreed technological changes in the organization of parliamentary work) and legal, being ordered, regulated and organized by law, which aims to promote expedient changes in parliamentary activity. The digitalization of the legislative authority gives an additional impetus to the formalization and rationalization of parliamentary activity, contributes to saving parliamentary time and intellectual efforts, makes the modern parliament open to the influence of the public, to intellectual and legal innovations, more responsible and more sensitive to social needs. It is shown that the key features of the modern period of digitalization of the legislative authority are (a) implementation of the concept of the electronic legislative process from beginning to end by organizing the passage of the draft law through the system of a single electronic document flow within the legislative triangle (People’s Deputies of Ukraine, the President of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine); (b) ensuring the personal participation of parliamentarians in plenary sessions by introducing a touch-button; (c) institutionalization of meetings of parliamentary committees and temporary commissions in remote mode (via video conference), as well as the development of the legal basis for the transition of Parliament in wartime to plenary meetings in remote mode. It is stated that there are still unresolved problems of digitalization of the legislative authority in Ukraine, in particular: (a) development of a realistic and effective procedure for involving citizens, the scientific community, expert structures of executive and judicial authorities in the legislative process; completion of the transfer of the entire legislative process to digital format; (b) creation of a legal basis for verification of the results of the will of People’s Deputies in the conditions of remote plenary sessions of the Parliament and its bodies; (c) strengthening the institutional capacity of the apparatus of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to introduce digitalization into the work of the Parliament, its bodies and People’s Deputies of Ukraine.

digitalization, legislative authority, parliament, e-democracy, e-parliamentarism, ICT