Appeal of civil society members to the President of Ukraine

The President of Ukraine
Mr. Volodymyr ZelenskiiDear Mr. President!We, representatives of civil society, expert organizations and the Ukrainian diaspora, have formed the Council of Civic Oversight over the implementation of the Annual National Program under the auspices of the Ukraine-NATO Commission. We address you on the basis of the following provisions:

• preamble to the Constitution of Ukraine, which confirms the European identity of the Ukrainian people and irreversibility of European and Euro-Atlantic course of Ukraine;
• Article 102 of the Constitution of Ukraine, which determines the President of Ukraine as a guarantor of the implementation of the state’s strategic course to gain full membership of Ukraine in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization;
• Article 10 of the Law of Ukraine “On National Security of Ukraine”, which, in particular, provides for the participation of citizens in civic control over the security and defense sector through public associations, which are guaranteed the opportunity to receive information from public authorities on the components of the sector security and defense, to conduct research on national security and defense, to publicly present their results, to conduct public examination of draft laws, decisions, programs, to submit their conclusions and proposals for consideration to the relevant state agencies.

Preserving the irreversibility of Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic course is a nationwide affair that consolidates Ukrainian society. For Ukraine, NATO membership is a matter of both national security and the country’s values. Recently, the rhetoric of the Russian Federation has been full of aggression and ultimatums against Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic efforts and aspirations. Accelerating Ukraine’s move towards NATO membership is the best response to these threats.
The NATO Summit in June 2021 in Brussels reaffirmed Ukraine’s roadmap for NATO. Thus, the Annual National Programs under the auspices of the NATO-Ukraine Commission (NATO) are a key element of this roadmap, recognized by the Alliance itself. Ukraine needs to make the ANP an effective tool that will bring it closer to obtaining the NATO Membership Action Plan. To do this, it is necessary to revise the formation principles and algorithm of Annual National Programs, namely:Formulate ANP according to the goals and tasks, contrary to recent practice of the inter-institutional coordination document;
Concentrate upon select number of the important institutional changes and abandon the practice of listing of the current activities of ministries into ANP;
Assemble the ANP within a single institution by a single team;
Include representatives of the civic society into the preparation and assessment of ANP;
Make reporting on the ANP implementation public.Considering the level of importance of ANP, civic society representatives created the Committee for Civic Oversight of the Implementation of ANP under the auspices of NATO-Ukraine Commission (CCO). The aim of CCO is to coordinate the efforts of the civic society in order to control, evaluate and aid the state institutions during their work with ANP. To fulfill this goal, an expert polling was held in December, 2021, regarding the priorities of the ANP for 2022. During the discussions and consultations, the following priority proposals to be included into ANP text in 2022, were drafted, to be signed by the President of Ukraine after January 31th, 2022. (Please see Annex 1):

• Reform of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) on the basis of the international advisory group recommendations and creation of the democratic civic oversight over the special and intelligence bodies.

Large-scale reform that, in particular, requires cancellation of the law-enforcement and military status of the SSU and turning it into the special counterintelligence body; limiting of the range of the cases to be investigated by SSU; abandoning of the anti-corruption and economic crimes investigations function; halting the attempts to enlarge the field of responsibility of SSU claimed to be the response to the new threats; new selection and career promotion of human resources, including unprofessional and non-meritorious employees. A separate dimension is the creation of the parliamentary intelligence oversight committee.

• Reforms in order to implement continuous work of the anti-corruption institutions.

The first priority is election of the NABU Director according to the legislation requirements; sustaining the institutional independence of the Office of the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor; guarantees of the non-intervention into the investigations of NABU and SAP and the jurisdiction of the High Anti-Corruption Court; de-politicizing of the process of selection of candidates for positions of Prosecutor General and the Chair of the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.

• Judiciary reform and Constitutional Court reform.

In order to reform the judiciary system, the composition of the High Council of Justice shall be relaunched; monitoring of the way of living of the judge’s lifestyle, including the legality of the origin of assetthe sources of property and funds; implementation of the criminal responsibility of judges for arbitrary the illegal actions during adjudicationthe justice process; renewing of the High Qualification Commission of Judges with the renewed membership, whichthat areis trusted by society; reorganizing of the local courts into the system of circuit district courts and creation of the magistrates courts and the juries; ensuring independent and objective case hearings with the top governmental institutions (including liquidation of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv); reforms of the higher law education in order to increase its quality. It is recommended to adoptvote on a new law on the complex selection procedure of the judges to the Constitutional Court.

• Defense procurement reforms.

The reform is meant to transform the management of the defense resources using PPBEA system (planning, programming, budgeting, execution, assessment) according to the NATO standards; creation and implementation of the full life cycle management of the weapons and military assets according to the NATO standards, including support and utilisation. A launch of the new unit within the Ministry of Defence is suggestedsuggensted, which should be responsible for shaping of the defence procurement policy for the defense and security sector and would fulfil the major role of the MoD according to the Law “On Defense Procurements”. Also, the decreasing of the secrecy levels of the defense procurement is suggested, as well as limiting the secrecy level of the facts and the value of the procurements, as well as the information regarding the suppliers, as well as declassification of the state defense procurement contracts already implemented.

• Immediate steps in the sphere of energy.

National resilience increase is suggested by the creation of the necessary resources of energy materials needed to manage the 2022-23 winter season (natural gas – no less than 19 cubic meters; coal – no less than 3 mln tonnes), as well as immediate correction of the national legislation in accordance with the Law “On Critical Infrastructure”. Regarding the logistical support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, an additional reserve of the fuel is suggested to sustain a continuous military action; consultations with the NATO Energy Security Center of Excellence in order to create an efficient system of energy resources management in the circumstances of the military actions.

• Anti-monopoly legislation reform.

This reform is about providing transparency, financial and operational independence of the Anti-Monopoly Committee of Ukraine; strengthening of the powers of the AMCU (physical search and confiscation of the documents in order to receive information and to exchange information with law-enforcement bodies and other institutions). Providing of the AMCU decision with the status of the executive documents; implementation of the mechanism of the AMCU Head and the state representatives selection as competitive and protected from the political influence; creation of the institute of the collective claims in order to provide customers with the efficient mechanism to protect their rights.Aside of those suggestions, civic society and expert community are requesting Cabinet of Ministers to:

• hold a public report on ANP implementation in 2021;
• include expert community into the preparation of the government’s ANP Implementation Plan for 2022;
• consider amendments to the current Regulations on ANP, in order to make it impossible to delay the ANP enaction, to codify the participation of the civic society in formulating and assessment of the ANP implementation (Annex 2)

According to the current Regulation on ANP, the Government of Ukraine is to offer an ANP draft along with the draft of the Presidential decree for the President to sign. So, there is a legal opportunity to include those suggestions into the ANP for 2022.
Both for civic society and international partners it is important to be convinced that the intentions of the Government to integrate Ukraine into NATO are genuine and result-oriented. The best way to dissolve the doubts is to have civic society as a partner in formulating and assessing ANP, confirming declarations of the officials with specific actions on the request of the civic society.Let us ask to take into account the suggestions made by CCO and give an order to include the following proposals into the draft of the ANP for 2022.Please send us the information, based on our right to receive response upon Law “On Citizen Inquiries”, providing us a written response to the following address: Kyiv, Yaroslaviv Val Str., 9, and eth e-mail nato.in.ua@gmail.com.Annexes:

1. Suggestions of the civic society to be included into the ANP for 2022
2. Appeal of the CCO regarding the amendments to the Regulations on ANP.

The appeal is supported by:

• Sergiy Dzherdzh, Ukraine-NATO Civic League
• Serhiy Kvit, professor, Kyiv Mohyla Academy
• Agia Zagrebelska, Co-Founder, Anti-Trust League
• Mykhailo Basarab, PhD, political scientist
• Olexiy Haran, professor, Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Research Director, Democratic Initiatives Foundation
• Viktor Bobyrenko, chair of expert group, Bureau of Analysis of Politics
• Oleksandr Kraev, Director, North America programme, Council of Foreign Policy “Ukrainian Prism“
• Arthur Pereverziev, Public procurement in security sector, supported by the UK MoD
• Hennadiy Riabtsev, Meleshevych Kyiv Mohyla school of governance, professor
• Olena Halushka, Member of Board, Anti-Corruption Action Center
• Mykhailo Zhernakov, Chair of Board, De Jure Foundation
• Lilia Ivasko, Agency of Regional Development of Transcarpathia oblast, Chair of Agency
• Sergiy Parkhomenko, Center of foreign policy research OPAD named after Oleksandr Nikanorov, Director
• Sergiy Peretiatko, National Service of Social Aid
• Yurii Mitin, artist
• Leontiy Shipilov, Member, Central Electoral Commission (2018-19), PhD
• Julia Kuzmenko, Chair of depatrment, Center of the Children Cardiology, doctor, volunteer
• Anton Senenko, senior scientist, Institute of Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
• Josef Zissels, Executive Vice-President of Vaad Ukraine; Executive Vice President of the Congress of National Communities in Ukraine; First December initiative group
• Yaroslav Honchar, “Aerointelligence” civic organisation
• Roman Kuibida, Deputy Chair of Board, Center for Political and Legal Reforms
• Yuriy Goncharenko, Foundation to Support Democracy, Deputy President
• Andriy Yusov, Director, School of Responsible Politics
• Sergiy Repik, Chair, Youth National Congress
• Pavlo Bilous, Movement to Oppose Capitulation, co-coordinator
• Valentyn Krasnoperov, educational initiative “The Last Capitalist”
• Hanna Hopko, ANTS Network
• Ihor Korzh, Institute of Information, Security and Law, National Academy of Legal Sciences, PhD
• Ihor Kozak, civic activist, businessman, military expert, Canada
• Mykhailo Honchar, President of the Center for Global Studies “Strategy XXI”, editor-in-chief, “Black Sea Security”magazine
• Volodymyr Ohryzko, Ukrainian diplomat, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine (December 2007-March 2009)
• Yuriy Butusov, editor-in-chief, Censor.net
• Ihor Koliushko, Chairman of Board of the Center for Political and Legal Reforms
• Stefan Romaniv, First Vice President of World Congress of Ukrainians, Australia
• Sergiy Yanchuk, Kyiv Taras Shevchenko University, peacekeeping mission veteran and volunteer
• Illia Kononov, Chair, “State Supporters League” civic organization
• Ashot Topchian, Director, Ukrainian Strategic Initiative
• Andriy Shcherbak, entrepreneur, Young Patriots initiative
• Andrii Levus, co-ordinator, Movement to Oppose Capitulation
• Vladyslav Vasyl, journalist, National Conservative Movement founder
• Oleksandr Ivanov, PhD in applied mathematics, “Switch into Ukrainian” initiative founder
• Vitaliy Ovcharenko, PhD in history, war veteran