Last week the law “On the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine” was published in the official periodicals of parliament and the government — Holos Ukraiiny (Voice of Ukraine) and Uriadovyi Kurier (Government Courier) respectively. The text of the law fills five newspaper columns. On the eve of publication, parliamentarians from the Party of Regions went to the printing house and in front of the cameras victoriously waved the newly-printed issue containing the text of the law.
However, the same ill-fated mistake that led to the second veto has resurfaced in the law: Clause 4, Part 7, p. 23 is missing. Therefore, the legality of the law can be disputed. Neither has the decision of the Mukachiv court banning the publication of the law “On the Cabinet of Ministers” been abolished.
Still, for the sake of fairness it should be admitted that the law has come into force de jure, although big problems will emerge once it becomes de facto. The presidential side is ready for a long, drawn-out struggle. The Presidential Secretariat is appealing to the Constitutional Court in connection with the law, while Our Ukraine is threatening to strip Oleksandr Moroz of the Speaker’s chair. Yulia Tymoshenko is ready to support Our Ukraine on this question, “with absolute political pleasure.” She says that everyone in the country understands why Moroz “should be out of the Speaker’s chair and completely outside of the parliamentary hall. For it is precisely Moroz who paved the way to the revenge of the corrupted power,” she said at a recent press conference.
Moroz himself is trying to appease the oppositionists. He says there is a registered draft law on making amendments to the law “On the Cabinet of Ministers” and its deliberation will be possible during the next plenary week. “I think we will find an optimal solution so that the law will work effectively,” Moroz declared.
As for his possible dismissal, the speaker has nothing to fear. The coalition is now more consolidated and monolithic than ever. Obviously, the parliamentary majority will not allow Moroz to be dismissed, and voices from the BYuT and Our Ukraine will not be enough.
What is important for the opposition is not so much the result as the very attempt, says political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko. “It is extremely important for Our Ukraine and the BYuT to demonstrate their unity and the consolidation of their positions at least in parliament. Joint actions are what they have been lacking for a long time. Everything else is of secondary importance. They will not succeed in unseating Moroz,” Fesenko told The Day.
The political scientist also believes that even now, after the publication of the law on the cabinet, the president’s position is not so hopeless. “Although the new law considerably restricts the president’s powers, there still exist certain constitutional norms that have not been regulated even by this law. At issue here is the president’s right to suspend the actions of the Cabinet of Ministers, which in his opinion do not correspond to the norms of the Constitution of Ukraine. And since the president objects to the law on the Cabinet of Ministers in general, he will have a chance to suspend the actions of any of the government’s decisions approved according to the norms of this law. And according to the Constitution, he should simultaneously appeal to the Constitutional Court. We will soon see (if this logic is applied) not only the issue of the constitutionality of this law in general but also the president’s appeal concerning the constitutionality of individual resolutions of the Cabinet of Ministers, adopted on the basis of the mentioned law,” Fesenko predicts.
Knowing the way our Constitutional Court works, one can foresee that the resolution of this question may be delayed for several months, and during this time the president may suspend the law. Experts think that this will be an important result for him, albeit an intermediate one. The rest will depend on the Constitutional Court’s resolution.
A strange situation is nonetheless emerging: practically everything in our country depends on 18 persons — the judges of the Constitutional Court. You cannot help feeling sorry for them: politicians commit follies and they have to untangle everything, which they are doing without any hurry or fuss for months and years. So, all this looks very much like a political and legal cul-de-sac, and there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.
