New procedure to register religious organizations proposed

The new wording of the Law of Ukraine on the Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations, developed by the State Committee on Nationalities and Religions, offers many innovations in the area of ensuring the right to the freedom of confession, registering religious organizations, and church-state relations.  

According to the experts of the Institute of Religious Freedom, most of the alterations were made to the procedure for granting religious organizations the status of a legal person. Also, the list of grounds for juridical discontinuance of the activity of religious organizations has been enlarged. This is due to the extension to the religious organizations of the requirements envisaged for other legal persons by the Law of Ukraine on the State Registration of Legal Entities and Private Individuals. 

For the first time, the bill was presented to the public at the session of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations. The mentioned text is the final version prepared by the State Committee on Nationalities and Religions in November 2010 as instructed by Ukraine's president. It was prepared on the basis of a text developed in 2006 by a work team at the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine.

On December 9 of the last year, the head of the state signed a Decree on the Liquidation of the State Committee on Nationalities and Religions.

After that, President Yanukovych on January 12 instructed the reorganized Ministry of Culture of Ukraine and Ministry of Justice of Ukraine to jointly complete and submit the new wording of the Law of Ukraine on the Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations by February 1 to be further submitted to the consideration of the Supreme Council of Ukraine.   

In view of the very short time given for the completion of the bill, experts suppose that the new executors of the presidential instruction will use the bill prepared by the State Committee on Nationalities and Religions as the basis.

According to the experts, one should not exclude the possibility of further alterations to the text of the bill, especially as regards the registration of religious organizations and the functioning of the state body on matters of religions. Such alterations can be made in connection with the liquidation of the state committee and the transfer of the tasks of registering religious organizations to the newly established State Registration Service of Ukraine.