KYIV -- Ukrainian lawmakers have voted to send President Petro Poroshenko’s proposed constitutional changes to the Constitutional Court.

According to the draft amendments, "a special law will regulate peculiarities of local self-government” in the districts, which are being held by Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Poroshenko submitted the bill to parliament on July 15 after coming under pressure from Western leaders to grant the areas some powers of self-rule as part of the cease-fire deal agreed in Minsk in February.

But the rebels have insisted that the special status of the districts they control should be mentioned in the constitution.