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11 March 2021, 09:38
The Chair of the Committee named the areas where parliamentary control over security and defence could and should be exercised. These include oversight of expenditures in the security and defence sectors, approval of key legal documents, in particular strategies, as well as plans for the personnel of certain forces and logistics of the Armed Forces and the defence sector. Parliament, according to the Chair of the Committee, should also be able to correct, if necessary, mistakes made by the executive branch. However, today it does not always work effectively in Ukraine.
“We already have a serious, meaningful and well spelled-out legal framework for the use of parliamentary oversight and parliamentary control, but we have not yet reached the point where the practice of exercising parliamentary control is really effective. So the question arises — how exactly will the new law on the Security Service of Ukraine help, if we have such cases today, when one ex-deputy head of the Security Service orders the murder of another one? Or when you and I have been talking about civilian defence ministers for years and step on the same rake every time we get another general who allegedly takes off his shoulder straps and becomes, ostensibly, a civilian minister, but in fact, he is not”.
The Chair of the Committee noted that the main thing at the moment was to move from documents to implementation, so that parliamentary control worked in practice, not only at the level of regulations.
Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze: “Civilian oversight and civilian control are crucial for the security and defence sectors”
The Chair of the Committee on Ukraine's Integration into the EU stated this during a webinar on parliamentary oversight of defence and security. She is convinced that there is already an understanding in Ukraine that civilian oversight and control of the security and defence sectors are extremely important to build a truly successful and capable armed forces and law enforcement agencies. The main thing in this process, according to Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, is to implement the documents that have already been adopted: “The National Security Law, related laws that have already been adopted in this convocation or adopted in the first reading are extremely important, but their practical implementation is also important and it is important to see how this parliamentary oversight and parliamentary control actually works”.The Chair of the Committee named the areas where parliamentary control over security and defence could and should be exercised. These include oversight of expenditures in the security and defence sectors, approval of key legal documents, in particular strategies, as well as plans for the personnel of certain forces and logistics of the Armed Forces and the defence sector. Parliament, according to the Chair of the Committee, should also be able to correct, if necessary, mistakes made by the executive branch. However, today it does not always work effectively in Ukraine.
“We already have a serious, meaningful and well spelled-out legal framework for the use of parliamentary oversight and parliamentary control, but we have not yet reached the point where the practice of exercising parliamentary control is really effective. So the question arises — how exactly will the new law on the Security Service of Ukraine help, if we have such cases today, when one ex-deputy head of the Security Service orders the murder of another one? Or when you and I have been talking about civilian defence ministers for years and step on the same rake every time we get another general who allegedly takes off his shoulder straps and becomes, ostensibly, a civilian minister, but in fact, he is not”.
The Chair of the Committee noted that the main thing at the moment was to move from documents to implementation, so that parliamentary control worked in practice, not only at the level of regulations.