Jean CHRETIEN, Canada’s prime minister from 1993 to 2003, recently visited Ukraine. During his trip he had meetings with the ministers of foreign affairs and justice and said he is ready to help promote judicial reform in Ukraine. Chretien is now a counsel at a Canadian law firm. In the exclusive interview below Canada’s former prime minister offers his view of the current political crisis in Ukraine.
“I can say you are moving towards a democratic system. However, sometimes you have growing pains. People should get used to the advantages and disadvantages of democracy. Whatever may occur on this road, you should not lose patience. I think you are making progress, and people feel that they are able to create an altogether different society. Naturally, it takes time to make changes. This road is always full of surprises, disappointments, and unpredictability. Changes come about very quickly in a democracy. Three years ago there was a presidential election in Ukraine, which aroused a lot of hopes and expectations in many people. But those expectations were sometimes unrealistic or they were not implemented as fast as people would have liked. In my view, Ukraine gained independence and should live in friendship with its great neighbor. We have the same in Canada. We have a great neighbor, the United States, which has always supported independence. We maintain good political and economic relations with the US, which are indispensable for economic and social progress.”
Coming back to the political crisis, do you see any signs that parliamentarism in Ukraine will come to a grinding halt?
“The distribution of political powers is always a problem. Your country is not unique in this case. Even France faced this during the presidency of Fran Н ois Mitterrand, when he had to coexist with a right-wing majority in parliament. Later, Jacques Chirac had to coexist with a left-wing cabinet. This kind of ‘cohabitation’ forces two sides to seek a compromise. You cannot live in a permanent crisis. The government must continue functioning, the nation must continue working. So the crisis will stop in due course. Now the president has concluded that the way out of the crisis is an early parliamentary election. He has tried, and is still trying, to use some constitutional powers. Because Ukraine introduced an entirely new political system, no one knows exactly how to resolve the crisis. Ukraine should have a permanent legal body to address the problems of any legislation, including constitutional. This will add stability to the country.
“Canada does not have a juridical system that would address a crisis like the one that occurred in Ukraine after the introduction of new constitutional legislation. Judges in our country are reluctant to deal with the constitution because if you set about resolving a constitutional problem, you are dealing with a problem of the masses, not an individual problem. And that’s something completely different. So we have a system in which we rarely go to court to solve a constitutional problem.”
In your opinion, was it too early for Ukraine to try to switch to a parliamentary-presidential system of government? Perhaps transitional countries should have a strong presidential rule, like the kind that exists in Kazakhstan?
“It does not matter whether you have a strong president or a strong prime minister. Somebody should be strong. As far as the system of checks and balances is concerned, it implies that nobody is strong. I do not want to tell you what you should do. I am an outside observer, and at one time I was involved in resolving constitutional problems in Canada. And I hate them. In 1980 we had a referendum that triggered a debate on constitutional amendments. We spent 15 years on this, and it ended up in a mess. When I took part in the parliamentary elections and was running for prime minister, I said: if you want to discuss constitutional changes, don’t vote for me. I don’t want to talk about the constitution. The problem with the constitution is that it cannot be changed often. This should be the most stable law in the country. I used to say that constitutional changes cannot create jobs or improve the country’s climate. Sometimes, instead of tackling the real problems of society, people tend to dream of a constitutional decision that, as I said earlier, will not create jobs or change the climate.”
Do you think that President Yushchenko had sufficient grounds for dissolving parliament because some opposition deputies had been lured over to the ruling coalition, which would then have an absolute majority in parliament? Could this kind of crisis lead to a snap election in your country?
“Yes, it is possible in Canada for a parliamentary party faction to split. There was a split of this kind for a long time on the right. We also see a small number of MPs switching sides. I want to stress that there are very few such parliamentarians. As a rule, those who do get nothing; instead, they become marginalized. This does not occur very often in the Canadian situation, but it is quite possible that a group of party members can defect to a different party faction for political reasons. But in general, voters do not like this. If parliamentarians are elected on a certain party ticket, people want them to honor their election promises.
“For example, I won a seat in parliament as a member of the Liberal Party, which was heading into the elections with its own program. I want to emphasize that the electorate does not vote for you as an individual but for your party; its program and its leader. And you can’t separate one from the other. In other words, they vote for a package. And nobody expects an individual to jump out of the package — on the contrary, the hope is that this person will be part of this faction and will be trying to persuade their colleagues to introduce changes, if necessary. We believe that there should be democracy in the faction, too. But if you fail to persuade people who are your friends, then you will obviously have problems when you try to persuade people who are your enemies.
“I don’t know if President Yushchenko had the right to dissolve parliament. A new constitution is a new constitution. And you are trying to implement a situation where the government has been elected and the president is in the minority. And now the new parliamentarians are less stable. They are moving from one faction to another. This is a very interesting problem. But I am an observer and want to remain one.”
Is Ukraine’s judicial system capable of resolving this crisis? “I do not know your judicial system. So I can’t say if it can or not. I do not quite understand the nature of appointments. But I know a lot about the Canadian judicial system. In my country, judges are appointed to exercise duties in many branches of the judicial system, such as civil, criminal, commercial, and constitutional law. They assume these offices after a long career as civil lawyers. If they become judges, they know they will hold this office until they are 75. Once they become judges, they immediately break any relationship with the government. Our law does not allow a minister to phone a judge and discuss a certain matter with him. If a minister does, he or she will be in serious trouble. For this reason, our judicial and executive branches are completely separate from each other.”
What can Canada do to help Ukraine modernize its judicial system?
“We have aid programs intended for developing countries. One of the areas where Canadian experience can be of use is the legal and legislative systems. For example, we have benefited from using the French and British lawmaking systems. Some parts of Canada use French civil legislation, while other parts adhere to common law. So we have access to two mentalities. We derive a similar benefit from the form of government. We work on the basis of British law, but in everyday life we stick to US legislation based on the principle of checks and balances.”
What price do you think Ukraine may pay if the political crisis persists?
“If you continue living in a crisis, investments will start getting ‘nervous.’ Nothing can be more ‘nervous’ than a million dollars, which don’t speak French, English, Ukrainian, Russian, Spanish, Italian, or German. A million dollars is a million dollars. Today you push a button and one million dollars vanishes. Gone are the days when you had to put a million dollars into a suitcase and run away. So politicians should know that they must reach a decision. They always can.”
In other words, it is politicians who should arrive at this decision.
“If they are tough and relentless, it will be difficult to reach a decision. This will require meetings and negotiations. As prime minister, I had to spend a lot of time negotiating and helping to make decisions.”
Does Ukraine need intermediaries to resolve the political crisis?
“I don’t know; that’s up to you. Sometimes international figures are not the best option. I think that this problem should be addressed here, at the local level. If elections are indispensable, they should be held. But it may turn out that they will not solve the problem. There was a situation in Canada when we had a minority government. We called elections but they didn’t change anything. Another minority government was formed. Even now Canada has a minority government. In my time I headed three minority governments. Sometimes I had to talk representatives from the other part of parliament into joining us. As a result, some of them accepted my proposal.”
