Legal Basis of Organization and Functioning of Political Parties in Ukraine

Abstract

The article is devoted to the research of the state of the legal basis of organization and functioning of political parties in Ukraine. Attention is drawn to the fact that the legal basis for the organization and functioning of political parties in Ukraine is mainly the general provisions of normative legal acts, namely: the Constitution of Ukraine, the Tax Code of Ukraine, the Law of Ukraine «On Political Parties in Ukraine», «On the Election of the President of Ukraine» , «On the Election of the People’s Deputies of Ukraine», «On the Local Elections», «On the State Registration of Legal Entities and Individuals — Entrepreneurs and Public Entities», etc. It is established that, although certain norms determine the peculiarities of creation, registration, activity and termination of political parties, their structural formations, a number of provisions of legislation regarding the organization and functioning of political parties require further elaboration. According to the results of the analysis, the main directions of improvement of the legal basis for the organization and functioning of political parties in Ukraine were proposed, in particular: clarification of the definition of the term «political party» contained in Art. 2 of the Law of Ukraine «On Political Parties in Ukraine» basing on the legal essence of this concept; defining the principles of political party activity; clarification of the list of documents submitted by the applicant for state registration of political parties; defining an exhaustive list of grounds for refusal to register a political party in order to prevent free interpretation by the bodies of registration of the provisions of legislation; specifying the procedure for state registration of political parties and providing additional time for eliminating deficiencies in the documents submitted for registration (suspension of consideration of documents submitted for state registration); determining the procedure for adopting, registering amendments and additions to the statute of a political party; the procedure for convening and holding the constituent congress (conferences, meetings), the procedure for forming and powers of governing party bodies; the need to determine the status of property after the cessation of political party activity. It is proposed to amend certain articles of the Law of Ukraine «On Political Parties in Ukraine» and the Law of Ukraine «On State Registration of Legal Entities and Individuals — Entrepreneurs and Public Formations».