Justice Party (Ukraine)

The Justice Party (formerly Party of All-Ukrainian Union of the Left "Justice" (Ukrainian: Партія Всеукраїнського об'єднання лівих „Справедливість“) ) is a left wing political party in Ukraine. It was founded in 2000 by a group of former Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU) members led by Ivan Chizh who were in opposition to Oleksander Moroz, SPU leader.

The party ran independently during the 2002 parliamentary elections gaining 0,08% of the votes and no seats. At the parliamentary elections on 26 March 2006 the party was part of the electoral Lytvyn's People's Bloc, which won 2.44 % of the popular vote and no seats. The party did not participate in the 2007 parliamentary elections.

The party backed Communist leader Petro Symonenko as a single candidate from the election bloc of left and central left political forces (of which it is a member), for the post of the Ukrainian President at the 2010 presidential elections.

In the 2010 local elections the party won a few representatives in 3 regional parliaments.

Party reform
In 2007 the SPU lost the parliamentarian elections, in order to "return into big policy" a group of SPU members including former minister of education of Ukraine Stanislav Nikolaenko and Aleksander Baranivskiy founded in 2008 the Union for Renewal of SPU and proposed 10 steps stated in the program "A Just Ukraine" to SPU leader O.Moroz. But the conservative entourage of O.Moroz persuade him to refuse the "road map for self-protection".

In March 2009 Nikolaenko and Baranivskiy left the SPU. In April 2009 Justice party party's founder Ivan Chizh offered to implement the program "A Just Ukraine" and principals of the Union for Renewal on the basis of his Justice party. On 15 April Nikolaenko accepted an offer to chair the party. This decision was supported by the party's Congress and Council. Former Head and party's founder Ivan Chizh was elected as an Honorary Head. Former Minister of agrarian policy Oleksandr Baranivskiy was elected to the Deputy Head post.

Based on the program "A Just Ukraine" Nikolaenko addressed to the leaders of left parties to create a "Forum of Left Forces" and conduct the parliamentary elections campaign as one team. The idea of supporting a joint candidature to the presidential elections from left forces was also a subject of discussion.

The newly elected head proposed to adopt changes to the Statutes aimed at a democratization of the decision making process within the party and limit the number of presidency terms to three, two years each (maximum - 6 years). He proposed to conduct secret voting, primaries.

It was applied to be an observer member of the European Left.