By 1 January 2027, territorial communities in Ukraine are required to adopt their own statutes. For some, this means drafting the document from scratch; for others, it means revising an existing statute to bring it in line with legislative changes. At the same time, communities will need to determine not only what their statutes should contain, but also how the mechanisms set out in them will work in practice.
Until recently, a territorial community statute was optional. The law allowed communities to have such a document but did not require them to adopt one. According to Oleh Kulinich, an expert with the project “Empowering Local Authorities and Citizens to Foster Open Interaction and Women’s Leadership,” implemented by ALDA with the support of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme, statutes were initially developed mainly by regional capitals, urban communities and other proactive communities. In some cases, however, statutes existed only as a formality: the document might have been published on a website or kept in paper form but was not actually used in practice.
“Following amendments to the law, all communities must have statutes in place from the beginning of 2027. This is not a formal document that is simply supposed to sit somewhere on a shelf. A statute is an important document that defines many processes within a community,” says Oleh Kulinich. “One of its main purposes is to establish the rules governing interaction between local authorities and residents. Different communities use public participation mechanisms in different ways, and the statute should define how these mechanisms work and the procedures through which they are applied.”
“The community’s future development largely depends on the quality and openness of its statute, as well as on how actively residents participate in drafting and discussing it,” the expert adds.
Anton Meliakov, a project trainer working with communities on drafting their statutes, describes the statute as, in effect, a community’s constitution. Not because it should duplicate provisions already contained in other laws and regulations, but because it defines how local self-government bodies and community residents interact.
Simply having a statute, however, does not necessarily mean that the document will serve its intended purpose.
“A poorly drafted, illogical or incorrectly formulated statute carries several risks. First, it may call into question the legitimacy of certain decisions made by local councils, whether city, settlement or village councils. Second, instead of structuring and regulating relations within the community, such a document may create misunderstandings and additional problems,” Anton Meliakov explains.
This work can be particularly challenging for smaller communities facing staff shortages. Not every community has a legal department with enough qualified professionals. For this reason, the expert recommends setting up a dedicated working group to draft the statute.
“The most important thing for a community is to establish a working group, bring together competent, motivated and professional people, give them enough time to do the work and provide them with the necessary resources. Above all, this means access to information, sufficient time and adequate human resources,” Anton Meliakov says.
For communities that have not previously had statutes, the process begins with determining what exactly they want the document to regulate.
Sixteen communities from different regions of Ukraine have been given the opportunity to develop or improve their statutes with expert support. As part of the “Empowering Local Authorities and Citizens to Foster Open Interaction and Women’s Leadership” project, a two-day practical training session was held in Lviv. The project experts are now working individually with each participating team.
One of the project participants, the Rokytne Settlement Territorial Community in Rivne Oblast, adopted its statute back in 2021, when such a document was not yet mandatory. It now needs to be updated.
“We are currently working to improve the statute because the legislation has changed and there are provisions that need to be revised,” says Olena Hvozdetska, head of the community’s legal department.
One example is the public evaluation of the performance of local self-government bodies. When the statute was adopted, this concept had not yet been introduced into legislation, so the document contains no corresponding provisions. The community later adopted a separate regulation governing the issue. It now plans to revise that regulation and incorporate it into the statute as an annex so that the relevant mechanisms are governed within a single document.
The Rohanska Settlement Territorial Community in Kharkiv Oblast, meanwhile, is only beginning to draft its statute. There, the process is also linked to the community’s future recovery.
“Strategic decisions, as well as decisions on recovery and the community’s further development, must take into account the views of residents from different settlements and representatives of different social groups. Only with this approach will our community be able to recover and develop effectively, becoming a place where people want to stay and live and where new residents will want to move in the future,” says Vadym Poliakh, Deputy Head of the Rohanska Settlement Council.
The community is already determining the composition of its working group. It plans to involve representatives of civil society, the council’s elected members, the executive committee and street committees. Three months have been allocated to prepare the statute.
Experts recommend using the limited time remaining before the beginning of 2027 for more than simply drafting the document itself. Communities need to establish working groups, review methodological materials, identify the mechanisms relevant to their particular circumstances and hold discussions with residents.
“Given that we are already in the second half of September, this work needs to begin without delay. The information, advisory and methodological support required for the process is already available,” Anton Meliakov says.
Oleh Kulinich also points to the risks for communities that fail to adopt a statute by the deadline. According to him, if a community does not have a statute in place by the beginning of 2027, certain legal transactions and actions carried out on its behalf may be challenged. He adds that failure to have the document in place after the statutory deadline would mean non-compliance with the requirements of the Law of Ukraine “On Local Self-Government in Ukraine.”
The U-LEAD with Europe Programme for Ukraine on Local Empowerment, Accountability and Development is jointly financed by the European Union and its Member States Germany, Denmark, France, Austria, Poland and Slovenia to support Ukraine on its path towards strengthening local self-government.