Confronted with the Coronavirus pandemic, the world’s parliaments have been forced to restructure their work and adopt innovative technological solutions, but a lack of appropriate legislation and associated ways of working has made it difficult for them to respond rapidly, particularly as regards remote voting systems, participants agreed at two Webinars for Ukrainian parliamentarians.
As part of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2018-2021, two video seminars were organised by the Parliamentary Assembly for the members and staff of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada on 28 May and 18 June, providing an opportunity to discuss the effectiveness of parliamentary models of virtual work and remote voting procedures. The participants shared personal views on parliamentary achievements at national level in this domain.
Experts from the United Kingdom, as well as the Parliament of Greece, delivered presentations on the challenges of using untested technology and adopting new working practices in the fields of security, virtual debates and virtual voting, while maintaining visibility and transparency. The new mechanism and working methods of the Parliamentary Assembly were presented by members of the PACE Secretariat.
As one of the leading countries in the world with experience of virtual parliamentary technology, the Parliament of Brazil was also invited to share its model of parliamentary remote working, providing an overview of an alternative experience from a different continent.
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For more information, please contact Anna Lungu, Project manager, PA Project Support Division; [email protected]
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