Deputies hold on to their perks

The Verkhovna Rada rejected a draft law on Tuesday aimed at limiting their deputy benefits and introducing the Imperative Mandate. 192 National Deputies voted for the bill out of the 436 registered.

The draft law would have abolished the right to free transport, use of official delegation halls, free housing and medical treatment.

It also envisaged additional grounds for early termination of a National Deputy’s mandate. This would have included a refusal on the day when they were being sworn in of a written undertaking to be in the particular faction and not take part in any actions against the faction.  It would have made it possible to strip deputies who left the faction of their mandate, with the question of their membership being determined by the leaders of the relevant faction, with such a decision not being subject to appeal.

Three parties en masse voted against the bill: the Party of the Regions, the Communist Party and Lytvyn’s Bloc. All deputies from  BYuT [the bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko) voted for the bill, while from the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defence faction, only 139 voted for it.