The adoption of the draft law 9055 may lead to the recline of Ukraine in international rankings.

The adoption of a draft law “On the Bar and Practice of Law” No. 9055 may lead to Ukraine giving up its positions in international rankings, since they also consider the access to justice and the level of human rights protection in the country.

This announcement was made by Valentyn Hvozdii, the Deputy Head of the UNBA and the BCU, in the program “Polityka UA” on the parliament TV-channel “Rada”.

“Our country will move further away from the civilized states in international organizations` rankings. As a result, no business will come to Ukraine”, - said Valentyn Hvozdii.

The Deputy Head of the UNBA has called the parliament members to wave the draft law, since it will throw Ukraine back for decades as a rule-of-law state. “The draft law has to be waved”, - Valentyn Hvozdii urged.

Currently, the report of the Main Scientific and Expert Department of the Verkhovna Rada recommends that the draft law should be remanded for the revision to the subject of the legislative initiative based on the first reading results. This position of experts is supported by the Bar, however, the content of the said report reveals the genuine objectives of the draft law - return to the state of the authority to organize access to the legal profession and the exercise of disciplinary procedures. These and other observations indicate the intentions of the real authors of the draft law to return the Bar under government control.

According to Valentyn Hvizdii, currently parliament members do not demonstrate the intention to implement this plan in the legislation, since the urgent daft law has not been considered for two and a half months by prescribedcommittees of the Verkhovna Rada.

In addition to the main draft law parliament members submitted two alternative drafts, which reflect the demands of the attorneys` community with respect to the extension of professional rights and the strengthening of the profession self-regulation. To date, two authors' groups have decided to unite around the matter of the project 9055-1, which has a more comprehensive vision of reform and consolidates supporters of a real reform of the Bar.