How can citizens participate in important public matters and express their opinion? How can trust in public institution be enhanced and democratic governance improved?
Member States have developed different instruments to enhance civil participation, among others by adopting various forms of public consultations.
Ukraine is currently considering the adoption of a law on public consultations, establishing a comprehensive system that would allow the involvement of all relevant stakeholders. The Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on State Building, Local Self-Government, Regional and Urban Development asked the Centre of Expertise for Good Governance of the Council of Europe for a legal opinion on the draft law and an overview of the existing legal framework arrangements in Europe.
The Overview was presented by the Council of Europe experts during the roundtable “Parliament-led Public Consultation: Best International Practices and Prospects for Ukraine”, organised by the Committee on 22 October 2021 with the participation of several stakeholders.
Andrii Klochko, Chair of the Committee opened the roundtable stressing the importance of the draft law in improving civil participation in decision-making, as part of the transition to a new model of governance.
As demonstrated in the report, the Council of Europe member states have a variety of measures to regulate and organise public consultations. In some countries, for example, the legislation can be very detailed and complex, whereas other countries focus more on the principle of building different opportunities of participation, leaving the details related to its organisation to different levels of government, or simply rely on established practices and tradition. In some instances, public consultation is adopted only for specific topics. Overall, there seems to be a growing tendency to adopt a multi-stakeholder approach, thus making the process more inclusive, and to use e-consultation tools.
The report and legal opinion were drafted in the framework of the Programme “Enhancing decentralisation and public administration reform in Ukraine”.
