The Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Social Policy and Veterans' Rights Protection and the Council of Europe Project “Continued support to promoting social human rights in Ukraine” invite experts in the field of social relations to join the working group on the development of the Social Code of Ukraine concept and draft.

To register, please fill in the questionnaire (in Ukrainian) and wait for invitation from the organisers. 

Let us remind that on April 9, 2022, at a meeting of the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Social Policy and Veterans' Rights Protection, a decision was made to create a working group to develop the draft Social Code of Ukraine.

To ensure compliance of the provisions of the code with the standards of the Council of Europe and the European Union, as well as the best practice of European states, the Council of Europe Project “Continued support to promoting social human rights in Ukraine” joined the work on the development of a strategic document of the state in the social sphere.

Ms Galyna Tretiakova, Head of the Parliamentary Committee, was elected a Head of the Working Group, and Ms Siuzanna Mnatsakanian, the Council of Europe Senior Project Officer, was elected as the Working Group Coordinator.

It is expected that the Social Code of Ukraine will contain an algorithm for the realisation of the social rights and guarantees of a person and a citizen provided for by the Constitution of Ukraine, in particular for a sufficient standard of living for oneself and one's family, as well as a mechanism for social protection of citizens who find themselves in complicated life circumstances. During the work on the document, among other things, international and European social standards will be thoroughly studied, including the standards of the right to a decent standard of living, social and pension security standards.

The Committee agrees with the need for a new systematisation of the social legislation of Ukraine, which, according to Ms Mnatsakanian, is currently multiple and outdated. “It is necessary to do what the European Committee of Social Rights calls a complete change of the political and social platform. The social security system must be completely changed, the emphasis must be shifted from social payments to social services. Currently, many social benefits are enshrined in Ukrainian legislation, which are not actually implemented, which only creates problems for Ukraine. Assistance should be provided to persons finding themselves in complicated life circumstances, and not depending on the category a person received. And the main amount of such aid should increase so that its volume ensures a normal standard of living for a person,” said Ms Mnatsakanian.

The development of the Social Code of Ukraine will also help the state to implement general measures, provided for by the judgements of the European Court of Human Rights, in particular, in the cases “Burmych and others v. Ukraine”, “Ivanov v. Ukraine” and “Zhovner v. Ukraine”. “By reformatting the model of the state's social policy, we will historically be able to stop the flood of court decisions coming from both the ECtHR and national courts, the obligations under which are again not being fulfilled, and the amount of sums to be paid from the state budget is only increasing. Social policy must be responsible and balanced, especially in a state that has received the status of a candidate for membership of the European Union,” confirmed the Head of the Committee, Ms Tretyakova.

The questionnaire can be found via the link: https://forms.gle/1h7yoiRgw3mQ8yoE9. The registration deadline is 1 September 2022.