On 22 November 2018 in Odessa the Head of the Department of legal Analysis of the Mission Anatoliy Chekhun and the Chief Consultant of the Department on Work with the Citizens Displaced from the Temporarily Occupied Territory Olena Netreibych participated at the Interregional meeting of the representatives of social services departments to discuss the improvement of the legislation of Ukraine ensuring the rights and freedoms of internally displaced persons.
The organizer of the meeting was the civic organization “The Tenth of April” with the support of UNHCR Ukraine within the implementation of the project «Advocacy, Protection and Legal Assistance to the Internally Displaced Population of Ukraine» including the increasing of the rights and capacities of communities in the South of Ukraine.
The interregional meeting was attended by the Head of the Odessa Main Directorate of the State Migration Service of Ukraine Olena Pogrebnyak, Representative of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights in the southern regions Olexandr Ostapenko, representatives of UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission, UNHCR and the officials of the social service departments in Kherson, Odessa and Kirovograd regions and the officials of the Ministry of TOT and IDPs’ Kherson sector.
The meeting was aimed at the exchange of the current positive and negative experiences between the participants on the realization of the IDPs’ rights to social provision. The implementation of the law enforcement practice was discussed in the context of its improvement and prevention of disagreement in application of the law in order to search and develop the mechanisms to overcome the collisions and gaps in legislation. Particularly the participants discussed the pressed issues regarding the exercising of humanitarian, social, economic and voting rights of IDPs, their rights to social housing etc.
Anatoliy Chechun presented the proposals on the amendments to the legislation on the protection of the rights and legal interests of the citizens, displaced from the temporarily occupied Crimea developed by the Mission in accordance with the request of the President of Ukraine. He draw attention to the pressed issues arise in the realization of the rights and freedoms of IDPs, requiring urgent legal settlement through the amendments to the existing law or using favorable court decisions in cases on finding the facts of legal importance.
The systemic problems with the pension provision for the residents of the temporarily occupied Crimea was noted for the need to improve the current legislation on pension support avoiding the need to interact with pension provision authorities of the state-aggressor.
As the result of panel discussions on the improvement of legislative practice, prevention of disagreement in using the legislative rules, searching and development of the mechanisms to overcome the collisions and gaps in the legislation by using different law enforcement practices, the common decision was taken on the need to amend the current legislation for the impeded realization of the rights and freedoms of the IDPs.
The Mission of the President of Ukraine in ARC will continue its work to elaborate the proposals for the amendment of the legislation of Ukraine regarding the protection of the rights and legal interests of the persons, displaced from the temporarily occupied territory.