Respect the Ukrainian Constitution!
Do you know why the Ukrainian parliament didn’t consider stopping deputies from holding several employments before the vacations? As it turns out, the reason was quite simple: because their votes would be needed in the likely extraordinary session of the Verkhovna Rada. The head of the deputy faction of the Party of Regions Oleksandr Yefremov spoke about this in his interview to Vlast Deneg (Power of Money). “Some deputies will leave and others won’t have time to join in. If we suddenly have to gather an extraordinary sitting of the parliament during the summer period, we’ll lack five to seven votes. That’s it, it’s only the time factor, and no political issues.” The Party of Regions allegedly didn’t try to prohibit the deputies from holding several employments at the same time because they feared that the Central Election Commission wouldn’t have enough time to register new parliamentarians so they can start fulfilling their duties by the end of the 6th session.
One should note that Yefremov understands the “political issue” in a very peculiar way: for him a direct violation of the Constitution of Ukraine, as it turns out, is not politics. Even more: he tries to publicly justify such a violation.
Some food for thought: as of today, a deputy’s mandate is combined with work in the executive government with the Minister of Natural
Environmental Protection Mykola Zlochevsky, the Deputy Head of the Administration of President Hennadii Vasyliev, the Head of the External Intelligence Service Hryhorii Illiashov, the head of “Ukravtodor” Volodymyr Demishkan, the Governor of the Lviv region Vasyl Horbal, the governor of the Vinnytsia region Mykola Dzhyha, and the head of the state company “Ukrspetsexport” Dmytro Salamatin. At this, they combine the positions for different periods of time: if Zlochevsky was nominated for office at the beginning of July, the resolution about appointing Hennadii Vasyliev was signed by the head of the state at the end of April. The constitution contains a law (Article 78), according to which people’s deputies can’t “be in the civil service, hold any other paid offices, carry out other gainful or entrepreneurial activity (except for teaching, research or creative activities), or to be a member of the governing body or supervisory council of an enterprise or profit-seeking organization.” A similar clause is found in Article 120, which contains the requirements on combining posts by members of the Cabinet of Ministers and heads of central and local executive governmental bodies. Constitutional Law provides the term of 20 days for a deputy appointed to the executive government to voluntarily relinquish his duties. If he doesn’t do it, then the head of the Verkhovna Rada must press charges, so that the people’s deputy is deprived of his mandate by court decision.
And now let’s have a look at how many articles of the Constitution are violated here and who is involved. Mykola Zlochevsky didn’t violate anything: 20 days didn’t pass since the date of his appointment. But how can one assess the actions of the chief secret service official of the country? If a person holding such an important post for over two months ignores the Constitution, how can one believe in his honesty and orderliness? What shall we do with other violators of the deputy’s oath (Article 79: “I swear to abide by the Constitution of Ukraine and laws of Ukraine”)? And how shall we treat the head of a faction who — if he is not able to bridle the violators himself —would have to go to president? And, finally, does the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Lytvyn, whose duty is to organize the work of the Parliament, fulfill his duties in this situation.
However, if the deputies holding several positions, and the speaker, and head of the faction solved this issue in a timely fashion (that is a few months ago), then accomplishing it would be done by… violating the Constitution. Voting “for myself and that guy” (and more often, for several guys) has long become a tradition in the Verkhovna Rada. And all this happens despite the fact that Constitutional Law strictly prohibits it: “Voting at the meetings of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is done by the People’s Deputy of Ukraine in person” (Article 84). How often during live broadcast of the parliament’s sittings could everyone see the people’s deputies push two, three or even five buttons, having inserted their faction colleagues’ personal cards for voting; how many times has mass media reported about scandals which emerged when someone voted with someone’s card, contrary to the will of its owner. But odd things continue to take place: there are but several dozens of deputies in the hall of plenary sittings, but laws and resolutions are adopted by a near constitutional majority of votes.
By the way, here we deal with one more violation of the Constitution which stresses: “People’s Deputies of Ukraine exercise their authority on a permanent basis” (Article 78). What kind of “permanent basis” is it, if only your card is present, not you personally? And how do you treat those ten deputies (seven of them from the Party of Regions, and three from the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko), who only attended one or two meetings during the last session, according to the Vice Speaker Mykola Tomenko, yet meanwhile their cards kept voting?
That’s how a clew of problems regarding the functioning of the Ukrainian legislative body unreels; one has but to start pulling a thread. And there are lots of threads.
One should acknowledge that these problems are not recent. They emerged from the social decay brought on by the Kuchma regime. It seemed that Kuchma would leave the top job and the situation would change dramatically. But it wasn’t the case.
In February 2005, the recently appointed Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko stated: to comply with the constitutional requirement, ministers, other heads of central governmental structures, and heads of regional state administrations not later than a month since the moment of being appointed for the posts should relinquish their mandates. Most of the ministers fulfilled their duty, but others… For example, the Minister of Education and Science Stanislav Nikolaienko stated, when the month passed, that the interests of his constituency demanded combining the posts in legislative and executive government and continued this combination with clear conscience.
In other words, having proclaimed very good things, the “orange” government didn’t transform words into deeds. That was a chance to finally go away from the substitution of principle for political expediency. At present this virtually impossible — not least because of the solidarity of governmental team in defending their interests.
In conclusion, all this means that the hopes for changes in Constitutional Law, which will supposedly make government more transparent and controllable, are vain. The current administration believes that the laws of the Constitution are not mandatory; however, a part of the opposition are also at fault. Its sad that at the beginning of the 21st century, the principle of the dissidents’ activity of the Brezhnev time, which conducted public actions under the motto “Respect the Soviet Constitution!” becomes topical once more.
