Verkhovna Rada fails vote for bill to decriminalize pornography, but will try again

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has failed to pass a bill aimed at decriminalizing pornography. Despite the fact that the initiative did not get the necessary number of votes, supporters of the reform plan to return to the discussion of the document at the next parliamentary session. This was reported by the author of the project Yaroslav Zheleznyak.

According to Zheleznyak, 207 deputies voted in favor of the draft law with the minimum required 226. The author of the legislative initiative Yaroslav Zheleznyak expressed sharp dissatisfaction with the results of the vote, comparing the position of the parliamentary majority with «the methods of the medieval inquisition.» In his opinion, it is unacceptable in a democratic society to subject citizens to imprisonment for sending personal photos of a candid nature.

The bill proposed to remove Article 301 from the Criminal Code, which currently provides for a penalty of up to seven years in prison for creating and distributing pornographic video and photo materials. The main arguments in favor of the changes were the need to fight corruption in law enforcement agencies and excessive state regulation of moral issues.

Chairman of the Finance Committee Daniil Getmantsev emphasized that parliamentarians would continue to work on the initiative. He assured that the fight against «corruption and hypocrisy» in this area will continue next week. It is worth noting that earlier there were lively debates around this issue about the limits of criminal law in the protection of public morality.