The European Party of Ukraine and the NGO “Institute of the Republic” signed a memorandum on cooperation concerning the issues of peaceful assembly

Today the European Party of Ukraine and the NGO “Institute of the Republic” signed a memorandum on cooperation. The subject of the memorandum was mutual intention to systematically cooperate on providing public awareness and legislative confirmation on the issues of peaceful assembly in Ukraine. This was announced today during a press briefing in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by the People`s Deputy of Ukraine, the leader of the European Party of Ukraine Mykola Katerynchuk.

The signatories agreed to conduct at the legislative level systematic work on the issue of assembly freedom in Ukraine, to actively inform international institutions, including the Venice Commission, about the real situation in Ukraine and to promote European values.

“We believe that the current Constitution of Ukraine, in particular Article 39, sufficiently guarantees the right of citizens to assemble peacefully and thereby to convey to the public their position on any issue or in respect of any event. Therefore, the adoption of any other laws that could harm freedom of assembly is inappropriate. Moreover, it only creates additional grounds for preventing of peaceful assembly by the power. These are the same precedents in other CIS countries and we shall consider their bitter experience to avoid similar mistakes in Ukraine”, – said the head of NGO “Institute of the Republic” Volodymyr Chemeris in his speech at the briefing.

Within further co-operation the parties agreed to hold round tables in different cities of Ukraine on issues of peaceful assembly by the end of 2013.

The briefing was also attended by the Information Director of NGO “Institute of the Republic” Oleksander Skyba. He said that the NGO “Institute of the Republic” is opened and cooperate with all political parties that support assembly freedom in Ukraine, specified in the Memorandum of the 138 civic organizations, human rights organizations and trade unions of the Ukrainian initiative “For peaceful protest!”