On 15 December an extended meeting of the working group on improvement of the national legislation on the human rights protection of IDPs held in Kyiv. The event was organized by the Ministry for Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons of Ukraine and the Council of Europe Project “Strengthening the Human Rights Protection of Internally Displaced Persons in Ukraine”.

Besides the members of the working group – representatives of relevant state actors, international organizations and civil society – also the experts of the Project shared their findings and conclusions on the existing legislative and regulatory framework concerning IDPs issues.

During the activity the speakers presenting achievements and challenges explored within 5 subgroups: improvement of the legal status of IDPs and the mandate of state authorities and local self-government; confirmation of civil status and agreements, recognition of legal facts; protection of social and economic rights of IDPs; ensuring access to education; housing, restitution, compensation for property loss.

According to key focuses, each subgroup suggested their proposals for the draft Plan of Action to implement “Strategy of Integration of Internally Displaced Persons and Providing Durable Solutions for IDPs till 2020”.

The future format of activity, obstacles to be talked and lessons learned also were discussed for improvement of the technical side of cooperation within the Working Group in the future.

Findings of the experts of the Project on realization of the notarial activities on IDPs, custody and release of  IDPs and persons from NGCA in penitentiary institutions, regimes of provision of housing, results of the national court practices monitoring in relation to the IDPs were delivered by representatives of the notarial community of Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions and All-Ukrainian Charitable Foundation “Gorenje”, as well as  by Mr Vyacheslav Svirets, Head of the Office for Supervising the Compliance with the Laws in the Implementation of Judgments in Criminal Proceedings and Other Compulsory Measures in Custodial Settings, Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Mr Oleh Pervomayskiy, Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University, Ms Anastasia Volkova, Institute of Economic and Legal Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Department of Economics and Law Problems of City Studies, Ms Olena Uvarova, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, Ms Svitlana Belikova, National Academy of the Public Prosecutors Office of Ukraine.

This extended meeting of the Working Group is considered as the last expert activity of the Project “Strengthening the Human Rights Protection of Internally Displaced Persons in Ukraine” in the implementation period.