MPs to cancel defamation bill tomorrow

The Ukrainian Parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn proposes to consider tomorrow as the first question a draft resolution on the cancellation of the Parliament’s decision to pass in the first reading the bill criminalizing defamation.
Lytvyn said this today during a conciliation board meeting, responding a question of chair of the Parliament’s Committee on Freedom of Speech Yuri Stets, whether this bill will be considered as the first issue on the agenda tomorrow.

Earlier, Stets reminded that on Friday, September 28, a meeting of the relevant committee took place. Its participants recommended MPs to consider a draft resolution on the cancellation of the draft law on defamation.

He asked the speaker, does it mean that tomorrow the draft regulation will be considered as the first issue.

"I propose to put it on the agenda, to consider and take a decision without debate," Lytvyn said.

Lytvyn’s proposal was supported by the representative of the President in the Verkhovna Rada, MP from the Party of Regions Yuri Miroshnichenko.

"I would like to ask to include the draft resolution in the agenda on Tuesday, as the adoption of the defamation law is unacceptable," Miroshnichenko said.

He added that similar bills have to be examined in international organizations, in the Venice Commission in particular.

"I am sure that the subjects of the electoral process, including the parties represented in Parliament are interested in holding fair elections and the cancellation of the bill will reaffirm our commitment to this goal," Miroshnichenko said.

Vice Prime Minister, social policy minister Serhiy Tihipko, also present at the conciliation board, said that cancellation of this bill should be held tomorrow.

"It should be cancelled tomorrow ... But if the majority decides not to consider it in the near future and in the meantime submit it to examination of the Venice Commission, it will be also a reasonable decision," Tihipko said.