By Edward Rakhimkulov

Law of Ukraine “On Local State Administrations” (No. 586-XIV) has been adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on April 9, 1999. It was first submitted by the Ukrainian deputies of the 13^th convocation Koliushko, Stretovych, Lavrynovych and others on October 17, 1996. The draft law passed a number of readings, and was several times vetoed and amended by the president.

The objective of this law is to delineate structure, authority and subordination patterns in a hierarchy of executive power in territorial-administrative units in Ukraine, provide legitimacy to existing executive bodies as well as provide mechanisms for settling of potential conflicts within the executive branch and between the executive and local self-government bodies.

However, it contains inconsistencies, contradictions and potential issues of concern which are outlined below.

1. The law defines that the executive power in oblasts, rayons (including rayons in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea), and cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol is carried out by respective state administrations. These administrations perform executive tasks bestowed on them by higher executive bodies and also the ones delegated by respective (in the jurisdictional boundaries) local councils (city, city district, town, and village). However, the law does not specify explicitly the mechanisms of interaction between these institutions, providing only descriptions of responsibilities of local state administrations. This creates potential problems as well as grounds for inefficiency in relations between the branches of power. For instance, local state administrations’ powers include preparation, execution, and reporting on execution of budgets, along with execution of local programs delegated by the local councils. The councils, however, amend and pass budgets; without a clearly specified system of interaction (consultations, joint meetings, planning, forecasting, use of compatible data parameters) the budget process can be seriously hampered by the political or individual ambitions of the authorities. Also, article 143 of the Constitution of Ukraine states that “bodies of local self-government, on issues of their exercise of powers of bodies of executive power, are under the control of the respective bodies of executive power”. How this control should be performed or enforced? The process is unclear, mechanisms of division of powers are not identified, and the definition of rationale for such division evidently remains at the discretion of potentially conflicting parties.
2. Article 1 of the law states that a local state administration “is a local body of executive power and belongs to the system of executive power institutions”. It places local state administrations within the hierarchy of the executive branch, establishing subordination and interaction mechanisms. However, some of the relations that don’t go directly along this power vertical (for instance, relations of individual ministries with district state administration) are not specified or prompted for specification elsewhere, leaving that essentially at the discretion of higher authority. Controlling and reporting mechanisms are mentioned in the relations between branch ministries and respective branch departments of the local state administrations, but not elaborated upon.
3. The law contains a drawback common to overwhelming majority of the legislative acts of Ukraine – repetitiveness, internal redundancy. It also repeats vague formulations of other laws. For instance, the passage of this law on the Cabinet of Ministers states that “Cabinet of Ministers can bestow in the boundaries defined by the Ukrainian legislation upon the local state administrations certain powers of the executive bodies of higher level” (italics added). Redundancy is internal (repetition of the control functions of the local state administrations several times in the text) and external, with the other legislative acts of Ukraine (For instance, Constitution of Ukraine: articles 118, 119 and 143 that define status and powers of the local state administrations and their interaction with local self-governments).
4. The law does not resolve issues of potential power conflict, as mentioned above (paragraph 2). It doesn’t specify the relations between the local state administrations and branch ministries’ departments in the regions, the so-called departments of dual subordination. Moreover, it may foster new conflicts in jurisdictional domain: article 6 provides for local state administrations’ issuance of orders within the boundaries of their competence (defined extensively later in the text). It states that these orders are mandatory to observe by all institutions, enterprises, organizations and citizens.
5. The law is ambiguous on the issue of state property: article 15 states that “respective local state administrations govern objects of state property that were transferred to them in an order specified by legislation”.
6. The law contains an article identifying special provisions for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, but is silent with regard to any special provisions for the cities of Kyiv (and Sevastopol), which are incorporated into the Law “On the Capital of Ukraine, Hero-City Kyiv”. The current law simply reiterates provisions regarding the structure and functions of local state administrations as the bodies exercising executive power in oblasts, districts, and the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol that are provided by the Constitution of Ukraine, articles 118 and 119.
7. The law extensively talks about the tasks of the local state administrations. They are essentially three-fold: (1) to insure the execution of the Constitution of Ukraine, its legislation and normative acts of higher executive authorities (President of Ukraine, Cabinet of Ministers, branch Ministries) in the jurisdiction area, (2) implement economic, environmental, and other programs (local and national) and prepare, implement budgets and report their execution; (3) interact with and perform responsibilities delegated by the bodies of local self-government. The second task provides for implementation of the programs, many of which—on the local level—are designed by respective divisions of the local self-government. The lack of clear-cut mechanisms of interaction between local state administrations and local self-government undermines effectiveness of their cooperation and efficient completion of the task range granted to local state administrations.
8. The law provides grounds for establishment of a powerful and much diversified in its task range local institution, that nominally has control and authority in a number of domains: economic development, budget preparation and execution, state property administration and privatization, city planning, transportation and communication, social protection, foreign trade in the region, and the like. The effectiveness of such an institution given the lack of unambiguous mechanisms to structure and legitimize its interaction with immediate task environment is doubtful.
9. Article 39 (9) states that heads of local state administrations control finances of the institution (the same is the situation with the local self-government bodies). Controlling and auditing mechanisms, as well as reporting procedures are not described.

Overall, the Law on the Local State Administrations is a positive development – it specifies areas of responsibilities for the oblast, and regional/city bodies of executive power. However, it leaves unanswered major procedural issues, most of which can exacerbate conflict of power and authority interests, especially between the local state administrations and the bodies of self-government on the city, town and village levels.

August, 1999