“We give you a year": in Parliament decided to amend Bill No. 8371

After the July 23 vote to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church failed, MPs decided to make new amendments to the draft law No. 8371. This time, the Verkhovna Rada is considering taking over the authority to determine whether a religious organization is affiliated with Russia or not, as well as changing the norm on the term “renunciation of Moscow” from six months to a year. About this in a commentary to the edition “Glavkom” told the deputy Nikita Poturaev.

“The conciliation Council decided that we go into this issue (changes to the bill on the ban of the UOC, ed.) and consider it. Here already without any options. But the Conciliation Council has a proposal for two amendments, which our committee must consider, after which they will be put to a vote. But the interesting detail is that these proposals are not written in the decision of the Conciliation Council,” — the MP said.

Poturaev added that the first amendment proposed is to change the powers of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethno-politics and Freedom of Conscience in the matter of their involvement in determining whether a religious organization belongs to centers that are located on the territory of Russia. The MP believes that these functions could well be performed by the Committee for Humanitarian Policy under the Verkhovna Rada, and the SESS should be reformed in general. According to the deputy, in the United States there were questions to the fact that such a service can not be dependent on the government.

“The Americans had cautions about the fact that such a Commission (under the SSEFC — ed.) should not be dependent on the executive branch. But, on the other hand, according to my initial assessment, the Verkhovna Rada cannot form such commissions. We can form our part in independent regulators or supervisory boards. But we cannot do it in commissions that are essentially created by the central executive authorities. This does not work and it is dangerous, because it can be appealed in the courts,” — Poturaev explained.

The second amendment proposed in the Rada is the norm on increasing the terms for exemption of a religious organization from affiliation with a center in Russia. In the current format, such a term was six months.

“The norm of six months, spelled out in the bill, they want to increase it to a year. Frankly speaking, we in the committee do not understand why. Because six months is more than enough, and even too much. But there was a closed part at the Conciliation Council meeting, where certain things were discussed that we can’t publicize. So far everything is in a fog, so both I personally and colleagues from the Committee are not very convinced that these terms should be extended,” — said the MP.

We will remind, earlier the speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament Ruslan Stefanchuk said that the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine will be able to meet next time, when the scandalous bill № 8371, aimed at banning the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, will be finalized. The official pointed out that so far there were still not enough votes in parliament to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.