On September 16, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted as a basis Draft Law No. 14405 on Ensuring the Authority of Local Councils under Martial Law. It is intended to help small communities in particular avoid a situation where a council loses its quorum as its membership shrinks and can no longer make the decisions it needs to make.

The draft law provides a special mechanism for village, settlement, and city councils in communities with fewer than 10,000 voters. If, after the powers of some council members are terminated early, no more than half but no fewer than one-third of the total membership remains, the council will be able to continue its work.

No local elections are held under martial law. In larger communities, a vacant seat may, under certain conditions, pass to the next candidate on the party list, whereas in small communities, replacing a member elected in a multi-member constituency requires by-elections. As a result, the gradual decline in a council's membership can leave it unable to function.

According to the CEC, as of November 23, 2025, 9,106 local council members had had their powers terminated early or had never assumed office — 21.1% of all seats won in the 2020 local elections.

During revisions, the provision that would have automatically triggered the establishment of a military administration solely because a council's membership had shrunk was removed from the draft law. The document also sets out special rules for council members performing military service: service in itself will not terminate their powers, and requirements for attending meetings, along with the consequences of missing them, will not apply to them.

The draft law also allows the procedures for council members' reporting to be adapted to security conditions. Transparent Cities emphasizes that security restrictions may change the form of reporting, but they must not abolish the principle of council members' accountability to voters.

Our team supports the objective of the bill. At the same time, as it is prepared for the second reading, it is important to preserve several safeguards: 

• the special procedure should apply only to councils that cannot fill vacant seats under martial law because of their reduced membership;
• the one-third threshold of the council's total membership should remain the minimum safeguard for collegial decision-making;
• a decline in a council's membership should not in itself automatically lead to local self-government being replaced by a military administration;
• changes to reporting should take security risks into account while preserving voters' access to information about their representatives' work.

Read more in the legal analysis.