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Oleksandra Pavlenko reported at the conference "Election Quality as a Basis for Democracy Strengthening"

27.07.2009

On July 23-24, 2009, in Donetsk (Ukraine) the international conference “Election quality as a basis for democracy strengthening” took place. The Conference was held under the aegis of the Laboratory of Legislative Initiatives with the participation and support of the Council of Europe, the Venice Commission, the Committee of Supreme Council of Ukraine on state construction and local government issues, the Central Election Commission of Ukraine in partnership with the Institute of Electoral Law, Donetsk regional organization of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine and with the Center of Legislative Initiatives.

Within the conference framework a plenary session “New Presidential Election Legislation and Problems of the European Election Standards” and two round tables “Honest and democratic presidential elections: prospects of Ukraine” and “Presidential campaign 2009-2010: a role of mass media” were held.

Oleksandra Pavlenko, attorney-at-law, partner with Pavlenko & Poberezhnyuk, Law Group and a member of invited group of experts presented a report on legal support in election campaign - arrangement rules of “legal staff”, common problems in company’s activity, legal interaction between the Center and regions, peculiarities of protection before the court and specific categories of judicial disputes within electoral procedure. She covered the strategies of judicial protection of elections results illustrating them by the examples of recent litigations. In the course of discussions on systematic elections falsifications Ms Pavlenko stated: “I am deeply convinced that the largest evil for each and every candidate running for the presidency is not falsification, but rather incapability to protect its result by means of law”.

“Significantly, today Europe is interested in honest and democratic Presidential elections of Ukraine and is likely to initiate the dialogue between the State and Justice, community and business, government and mass media in Ukraine”, said Ihor Kohut, the Head of the Council of Laboratory of legislative initiatives.

The Laboratory of Legislative Initiative is an independent civic organization (analytical center) which was established in 2000 by graduates of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. The main areas of activity of the Laboratory of Legislative Initiative include preparation and publication of information analytical materials and expert researches on public policy; development of regulatory acts’ drafts and recommendations on legislation improvement; organization of public events on optimization of the current standard base, discussion of the problems of domestic political process, examination and application of the international experience; implementation of monitoring political process and activity of authorities; provision of consultations on political legal issues; formation of public opinion on the policy of government bodies and local government by implementation of social campaigns, organization of press-conferences through the Internet sites and e-mail; realization of educational projects and establishment of opportunities for socio-political leaders to communicate.