Last Friday, Verkhovna Rada discussed submission to the Constitutional Court (CC) of a bill to amend the Constitution in conformity with the results of the April 16 referendum, Interfax-Ukraine reports. This bill was introduced in Parliament on April 25 by President Leonid Kuchma. Simultaneously, the President duly requested the CC to consider the bill’s constitutionality on a priority basis. On the other hand, on the eve of this, on Wednesday, May 10, Stanislav Nikolayenko, representative of the Left Center Socialist faction, suggested the lawmakers support the alternative bill drawn up by People’s Deputies Oleksandr Moroz, Serhiy Holovaty, and Mykhailo Pavlovsky, and their ideas of amending the Constitution. In addition, Mr. Nikolayenko proposed backing a draft resolution on the formation of a parliamentary commission to prepare the bill on introducing changes into the Constitution in line with the referendum results.
Thus, although there is no alternative to implementation, different ways of legally approving the referendum results have been proposed. To understand why this seemingly formal voting in Parliament last Friday was accompanied by a heated debate, one must recall that the legislators cannot begin discussing the essence of Constitutional changes until a respective law passes through the CC purgatory. In other words, implementation as such is preceded by an “expert examination.” The Court will conclude whether or not the proposed constitutional amendments infringe the rights and freedoms of citizens, are aimed at eliminating independence, violating territorial integrity of Ukraine, etc. According to former Justice Minister Vasyl Onopenko, “Submission to the CC is a technical procedure. The Court does not go outside Articles 157 and 158 of the Constitution of Ukraine, so it cannot influence the content of the bill’s articles.” Hence, the existing and hypothetically possible bills are most likely to pass through purgatory, for none of them contains such objectionable things as elimination of independence. The problem lies elsewhere: if the CC cannot be regarded as an effective obstacle to undesirable bills, then why should some bill’s the government considers unnecessary not be subjected to expert examination? For, if there are no CC conclusions, then, sorry, dead in the water. So this procedural item could become an important factor in scenarios of implementation.
The parliamentary leadership only introduced a resolution on submitting the presidential bill to the CC. The opposition, which had collected the signatures of 152 deputies and submitted to Verkhovna Rada alternative draft changes in the Constitution, reasonably suspected: the majority can obstruct and send nowhere the opposition’s bill which trails the presidential one. People’s Deputy Roman Zvarych also noted, “This common procedural item shows how it is possible to obstruct a constitutional changes bill for political reasons.” Her also warned this could trigger an acute constitutional crisis.
The most striking thing is that the problem was solved quite easily and in favor of the opposition: 304 supported the option moved by People’s Deputies Matviyenko, Yermak, and Shyshkin to reduce the procedure of submitting to the Constitutional Court both, presidential and alternative, bills to an official instruction for Speaker Ivan Pliushch to do so over his own signature, rather than by a separate Verkhovna Rada resolution. Noteworthy is the count of the first round of implementation: 174 votes for the leadership’s bill and 304 votes for the opposition one. Mr. Moroz explains this by the fact that about 70 Deputies belonging to the parliamentary majority put their signatures to the alternative bill on constitutional changes.
Another explanation is also possible: too little effort has been made for the parliamentary majority to achieve monolithic unity, so the first full-blooded battle for the amendments has not yet begun. What has happened can be regarded as a small-scale positional battle which revealed the problems within the majority.
The next stage of the constitutional reform is likely to be associated with the formation of a parliamentary commission to deal with (the Solons greatly differ in their opinions here) either a preliminary analysis of various bills perpetually increasing in number (Onopenko), composing a single text of constitutional amendments (Zvarych), or, as President Kuchma said earlier, laying the groundwork for a bicameral parliament. Whether a commission like this will be formed, whether it will be single or one of the alternatives ones, and, moreover, its composition, are the outlines of the next battle for which strategists and tacticians of the great process of implementation are preparing.
INCIDENTALLY
Answering the question of a journalist at a press conference held jointly with Toomas Savi, head of the Estonian parliament, Ivan Pliushch said Verkhovna Rada had made “a wise and balanced decision” last Thursday to submit both bills, presidential and parliamentary, to the Constitutional Court. “And I will obey the will of Parliament,” he stressed. However, Mr. Pliushch added, doubts arose about the number of signatures required for putting the Deputies’ bill on the agenda. He pointed out, for example, the same lawmaker’s signature could be seen on three pages. Some problems emerged about another 21 signatures. Thus, the Speaker noted, if a verification shows that everything is all right, the Deputies’ bill will also be submitted to the CC, Interfax-Ukraine reports.
(For more see pages DAY AFTER DAY and CLOSEUP)
