Zadorozhnyi was mistaken — the election law has a 4% barrier

However, the published text of resolution No. 1600-IV of March 5, 2004 removes the question: the document provides for the adoption as a basis of the draft law of Ukraine on the election of people's deputies of Ukraine (No. 4285-4, submitted by deputies Rudkovskiy, Klyuchkovskiy, Oluyko, Ponomarenko) without any reservations regarding the election threshold.

As experts of the Laboratory of Legislative Initiatives note, this is logical, since in accordance with the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada, the adoption of a draft law under the first reading procedure does not provide for the possibility of introducing amendments to the text of the draft law. The draft law itself, in part three of Article 78, clearly establishes a 4% threshold.

The reason for the different comments can be understood by analyzing the transcript of the plenary session of parliament on March 5.

Thus, presenting the draft law, deputy Mykola Rudkovskiy (Socialist Party faction) noted that the draft law provides for a 4-percent threshold. At the same time, he continued further: "There was a discussion: 4% or 3%, or 5%, or 6%. There were proposals that we need to have 6% for blocs. But I want to draw attention to the fact that during the discussion we insisted that there should be one threshold for all — whether four or three. And all — both parties and blocs — should be on equal conditions."

But just a few seconds later, the Socialist Party representative was reading into the transcript a list of "technical" amendments which, in his opinion, should be taken into account if the draft law were adopted not only in the first reading but also as a whole. Among these amendments, changes to the aforementioned Article 78 of the draft law regarding the reduction of the election threshold to 3% also flashed by.

So, if on March 5 the draft law had been voted on as a whole and the chairperson of the session had noted for the transcript that the draft law was being voted on taking into account Rudkovskiy's amendments, then a law on elections under a proportional system with a 3% threshold would have been approved.