Ruslan Stefanchuk
Ukraine's parliament on 08 Oct 202 voted to appoint Ruslan Stefanchuk, a lawmaker from the ruling Servant of the People party, as the new speaker to replace Dmytro Razumkov after a dispute over a law targeting the influence of oligarchs. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's party had voted to remove Razumkov, accusing him of putting his own interests above those of the party, in a move opposition lawmakers criticised as trying to silence independent voices.
Stefanchuk was born on October 29, 1975 in Ternopil in a family of medical students. His higher education included (diploma with honors), specialty "Jurisprudence", Khmelnytskyi Institute of Regional Management and Law (1997); and specialty "Management of the production sphere", Podillia University of Technology (1997).
He began his career as Editor-in-Chief of the scientific specialist magazine "Law of Ukraine", first deputy editor-in-chief of the legal magazine "Law of Ukraine", deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine "University Scientific Notes". He was a member of the Scientific Advisory Council at the High Specialized Court of Ukraine for consideration of civil and criminal cases. Member of the Educational and Methodological Commission on Law of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. Member of the working group of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine for the development of the Concept of the Development of Legal Education in Ukraine.
From 2005 to 2011, he was vice-rector for scientific work at the Khmelnytskyi University of Management and Law. Before that, he worked there as an assistant of the department, senior teacher, head of the department, associate professor, professor of the department of civil and legal disciplines. Engaged in advocacy. Research activities included problems of the general theory of private law, personal non-property rights of natural persons, contractual and tort obligations, intellectual property law, European civil law, activities of the European Court of Human Rights, medical law, legal education and science. His rank was Doctor of Law, professor, corresponding member of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine. Honored Worker of Science and Technology of Ukraine.
As an assistant, he cooperated with People's Deputy from the "Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense" bloc Anatoly Matvienko, as well as with Deputy Prime Minister Stepan Kubiv. In 2011-2013, he headed the department of national legislation development problems at the Institute of Legislation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Until 2019, he was engaged exclusively in scientific activities, worked at the Khmelnytskyi University of Management and Law (today — Khmelnytskyi University of Management and Law named after Leonid Yuzkov) and at the National Academy of the Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine.
In 2019, he was the ideologist of the election campaign of the candidate for the presidency of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi , and supervised the work of expert groups. Since May 21, 2019 he served as an advisor to the president, and representative of the president in the Verkhovna Rada. Candidate for People's Deputies from the Servant of the People party in the 2019 parliamentary elections, No. 2 on the list. Non-partisan. In August, Zelensky initially fired, and on August 19 reappointed Stefanchuk as his representative in the Verkhovna Rada. Elected as a People's Deputy of Ukraine on the party list of the "Servant of the People" party, he took office on August 29, 2019. On the same day, he was elected First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
On October 8, 2021, the Verkhovna Rada appointed Ruslan Stefanchuk as the Speaker of the Parliament.
For the first month after the full-scale invasion, Verkhovna Rada Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk lived in a "nomad's regime." Every day, the guards found a new location for spending the night and working. It even happened that the speaker of the parliament had to settle for some premises on a farm, where goats "worked" next to him. It is obvious that in the large underground shelter in Kyiv, where the president, prime minister and other high-ranking officials spent the first days of the war, there was also a room for the speaker of the Council. But on February 24, Stefanchuk and Zelenskyi agreed that they would not cross paths in the same place, let alone in the same bunker. After all, if Kyiv falls, and the president is captured or killed, then the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada will have to become the head of state.
He is married, has a son and a daughter.
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