e-mail
I was waiting for the flurry of emails from the US Embassy in Kyiv to stop. It all started with a March 22 2007 email.
The US Embassy announced that adoption laws were changing and would be implemented within a week or so. The Parliament of Ukraine passed bill #2562 which would make single adoption illegal and set age restrictions on adoptive parents.
This didn’t match exactly what I was hearing via other sources…. but I decided to go ahead and post the March 22 2007 email. Turns out the US Embassy can be wrong about their facts like everyone else.
Let’s start with how a bill becomes law in Ukraine.
They have a unicameral parliament.
Legislatures called parliaments typically operate under a parliamentary system of government in which the executive is constitutionally answerable to the parliament.
From: Parliamentary government
……..the functions of a second chamber, such as reviewing or revising legislation, can be performed by parliamentary committees, while further constitutional safeguards can be provided by a written constitution.
From: Unicameralism
The Verkhovna Rada takes 2 passes though a bill before it becomes law because they are unicameral. These are called first reading and second reading. The bill is read and voted on.
Many amendments can be made on a bill between first and second reading. And sometimes a bill dies before it gets to the second reading.
The 2 readings/votes must be done in two regularly scheduled sessions.
Then the President must sign the bill making it a law.
It becomes effective when it is published in the Verkhovna Rada’s official newspaper.
Draft bill #2562 has made it past the first vote.
The US Embassy has acknowledged that if #2562 gets a second reading, it won’t happen until May or June.
They also sent out clarification that the oldest parent can only be 45 years old then the adopted child….. if this law passes.
It is difficult to tell because I am outside of Ukrainian politics and culture…. But it seems like there is push back within Ukraine on this draft law.
So here is hoping that second reading never happens or the bill gets greatly revised.
