Parliamentarians intend to lustrate MPs who voted for Yanukovych's "dictatorial laws" – bill

MPs Serhiy Kuzminykh, Heorhiy Mazurashu, and Anatoliy Ostapenko (Servant of the People party) have registered bill No. 9137 on preventing persons who have harmed the sovereignty, territorial integrity and defence capability of Ukraine by their actions from governing the state.

It is proposed to amend the Law of Ukraine "On Lustration of Power". The document was adopted in September 2014 and set out the legal and organisational framework for the lustration of power. According to the law, lustration was applied to persons who had held a senior management position for at least one year (cumulatively) from 25 February 2010 to 22 February 2014, as well as to officials who held office between 21 November 2013 and 22 February 2014 and were not dismissed during this period on their own accord.

At the same time, MPs who voted for the Kharkiv agreements in April 2010 managed to avoid responsibility. "In fact, such MPs committed a state crime by granting permission to extend the stay of the russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol from 2017 to 2042 (with an automatic extension for 5 years), whose ships and submarines destroy Ukrainian settlements in 2022 and kill Ukrainians," the explanatory note says. 

It is also proposed to add to the list of persons to be lustrated the MPs who voted for the "dictatorial laws" on 16 January 2014. This is aimed at restricting protests and expanding the repressive powers of the security forces to counter protesters. 

According to the bill, these categories of citizens are not entitled to hold public office for ten years from the date of entry into force of this document (the day after its publication), except for articles on the lustration of MPs. They are proposed to come into force on 1 June 2023.