“We will start the next session of the Rada with the consideration of the ban of the UOC,” - the speaker of Parliament

The speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Ruslan Stefanchuk, has said that the next parliamentary session will start with the consideration of draft law No 8371 aimed at banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Stefanchuk believes that the time has come to put an end to this issue. He told about this in an interview with the Ukrainian News.

“We start the next meeting with the consideration of this bill. And this is if there was a position of the overwhelming majority of factions and groups. I think that fairly we have to put a point on this issue,” — said Stefanchuk.

Despite the desire of deputies to consider the bill as soon as possible, the Speaker of Parliament does not share their optimism, confirming the opinion that by the second reading it has changed very much for the worse.

“A completely new concept. Absolutely new vision. That’s why some deputies are absolutely right to say: ‘we voted in the first reading for one thing, and for the second reading they prepared us something incomprehensible’.” I personally, as a lawyer, went through the entire text of this law for two days, as my colleagues will confirm,” — Stefanchuk explained.

Ruslan Stefanchuk added that the law on the ban of the UOC has become absolutely untenable from a legal point of view, so even in case of its adoption, there may be reasonable claims to it.

“We don’t just need to pass some law and tell society, ‘that’s it, we’ve passed it.’ We have to pass a law that will work. Because the worst thing is if we pass a law and it doesn’t work, then there will be a complaint against us. What kind of garbage have you passed? Why can’t we realize our rights? You know? And that is why it seems to me that it is very important to come out here, first of all, on a legally perfect bill, and secondly, to conduct it in accordance with all the applied procedures,” — emphasized the chairman of the Rada.

We shall remind you that the Radio Liberty weekly, citing its own sources, reported that the US political establishment is critical of the initiative of Ukrainian MPs to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by adopting the scandalous draft law No 8371. This is why, according to the publication, this law was not voted on Tuesday, July 23, in the Ukrainian Parliament.