Last Thursday President Leonid Kuchma requested the Constitutional Court to provide an official interpretation of the constitutional clauses envisioning the reasons for an early dissolution of Verkhovna Rada by the president. The appeal reads that the president has been forced to appeal to the Constitutional Court in view of the fact that “certain groups of deputies and factions” obstruct work in the parliament, Interfax Ukraine quotes the presidential press service as saying. The president believes this is the reason why the most vital issues for the country remain unsolved. In particular, such a situation threatens to delay the adoption of the state budget. The president believes that this constitutes a violation of the people’s constitutional right to exercise power through state bodies, in particular the parliament. According to the press service, the clauses in question are Clause 90, Part II, and Clause 106, Part I, Paragraph 8 of Ukraine’s Constitution. Under Clause 90, Part II, “the president of Ukraine may disband Verkhovna Rada, if during thirty days of a single regular session plenary sessions fail to commence.” In his appeal, the president requested the Constitutional Court to answer the following questions: how the expression “during thirty days” should be interpreted; how many plenary sessions should fail to commence for implementing the envisioned measures; and what the words “fail to commence” mean. The president has authorized his permanent representative at the Constitutional Court Vladyslav Nosov to participate in the consideration of his request.
The Day approached Viktor NEBOZHENKO, president of the Trident Corporative Support Agency, for comment on this situation:
“One should give the president his due. He has finally taken a systemic approach to the problem of Verkhovna Rada and political reform. In other words, in addition to a carrot in the form of extending the parliament’s term for one more year, as suggested in one of the bills on the political reform, he also used a stick, that is, a scenario whereby Verkhovna Rada could be disbanded. Now the parliament is facing a dilemma: whether to agree to the president’s project of the political reform or face a real threat of being disbanded. As we know, the Constitutional Court doesn’t distinguish between political and legal categories. Therefore, it will probably give the President an abstract right to dissolve the parliament.
“This is exactly the case when the President exercises his function of a guarantor. If the parliament for some reason fails to perform its function of the country’s supreme legislative body, somebody has to assume the responsibility and tell the parliament about this and simultaneously take some steps. From this viewpoint, Leonid Kuchma is absolutely right. The same goes for the lawmakers, when they put forward some claims to the president, try to create ad hoc committees, or start the impeachment procedure. In other words, this is a completely constitutional way to solve the differences between the president and parliament. That the president took such a step is not a threat but his duty to respond to the disorder in the parliament.
“It is another thing that the president also has a political goal, that is, to create a set of proposals the deputies will not be able to reject, or threats that would make them adopt the political reform project Leonid Kuchma considers most appropriate before the end of the year.”
