Parliamentary egalitarianism

Now that Ukraine’s constitutional reform has been partially implemented, the absence of entire legislative chapters is acutely felt, especially in the Crimea. A bill has yet to be passed on the Crimean Council of Ministers, while the autonomy’s parliament still has no clearly outlined legal status, even though in late 2005 the Ukrainian parliament passed a bill on the status of Crimean parliamentarians. This bill has already sparked discontent, even though this piece of legislation is still not in force, but awaiting the president’s signature. The issue has produced divergent views in the political community. Crimea’s Parliamentary Speaker Borys Deich has said that he considers the adoption of the bill on the status of Crimean parliamentarians to be a victory for the parliamentarians and people of the Crimea. He believes that the bill will broaden the possibilities for Crimean parliamentarians. Deich also expressed the hope that President Yushchenko will sign this bill in the immediate future because, in his view, it is “the beginning of genuine administrative reform in the fullest sense of this word.”

On Dec. 22, 2005, the bill on the status of parliamentarians in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea received 233 votes in the Ukrainian parliament. One member abstained, and 169 did not vote, including 34 members of the Our Ukraine faction, who were present during the voting. Another nine Our Ukraine members were absent, which explains why Deich criticized the position of the Our Ukraine faction. It did not contribute to the passage of the bill, he commented. “It’s a shame that one of the biggest factions in parliament, Our Ukraine, did not give a single vote in support of the status of the autonomy’s parliamentarians.” Two members of the People’s Movement of Ukraine faction, Mustafa Dzhemilev and Refat Chubarov, as well as Oleksiy Remeniuk of the Yedyna Ukraina [One Ukraine] faction and Ihor Franchuk of the Vidrodzhennia [Revival] group did not support the bill either.

The bill defines the status, powers, rights, duties, and liability of Crimean parliamentarians, along with the legal and social guarantees underpinning the discharge of their parliamentary functions. The bill sets forth parliamentarians’ duties, including the obligation to review petitions from voters and, if necessary, to refer them to government agencies, local self-governing bodies, establishments, and organizations charged with examining citizens’ petitions or addressing various matters; and to meet with citizens in person on days assigned by the Crimean parliament for meetings with voters.

However, not everyone in the Crimea shares these positive views of the approved bill. People’s Deputy of Ukraine Volodymyr Shkliar, who represents the Crimea in the Ukrainian parliament and heads the Crimean organization of the People’s Union Our Ukraine, told The Day that the status of Crimean parliamentarians should facilitate the autonomy’s economic, political, and social progress. Meanwhile, the approved bill does not fully meet this objective, according to the Our Ukraine faction, of which Shkliar is a member. For example, under the approved bill, a single Crimean parliamentarian can initiate an inquiry into the work of not just a ministry but the entire Council of Ministers. Understandably, in the most likely situation, in which both the Crimean parliament and the government will be a motley crowd of political forces, 100 parliamentarians with the right to launch an inquiry will simply stonewall the autonomy’s government, terrorizing it with incessant inspections. In the meantime, Crimean residents will suffer, with their vital issues unresolved. Shkliar and his faction thus believe that these powers should be additionally regulated.

On the other hand, at a time when even Ukrainian parliamentarians are looking for ways to revoke their immunity, it would be nonsensical to grant such immunity to Crimean parliamentarians, especially since the Ukrainian parliamentarians who supported this bill, much like their Crimean colleagues, earlier expressed their willingness to revoke immunity. “I think that in this important matter the words and actions of the parliamentarians should not be at odds,” says Shkliar, adding: “The Crimea had an unfortunate experience, when parliamentarians enjoyed immunity, which resulted in the criminalization of political relations in the autonomy. This should be a lesson to prevent us from repeating old mistakes.”

The new bill on the status of Crimean parliamentarians would also grant them the right to use all kinds of municipal transport free of charge. Under the bill, Crimean parliamentarians who work on a permanent basis in the Crimea and have no accommodation in Symferopol would be provided with official housing. Before such housing is provided, a member of the Crimean parliament would be put up in a one-bedroom hotel suite paid out of the republican budget. If signed into law, the bill would grant Crimean parliamentarians priority in reserving hotel suites in any location in the autonomous republic. Shkliar says that these privileges for members of Crimea’s parliament were “copied” from the law on the status of Ukraine’s parliamentarians and are unjustified because both sets of parliamentarians operate in different conditions. Sessions in the Crimean parliament take place once a month and, as practice has shown, they last for only five or six hours. Given the Crimea’s relatively small size, travel time from the remotest location on the peninsula to Symferopol is under four hours, and most raions lie within close proximity — one or two hours’ drive — of the center. Every MP is provided with a car, which means that travel poses no problem. Furthermore, session time adds up to 50 or 60 hours per year, and there is simply no need to use a hotel, not to mention an apartment. Our Ukraine members also believe that once parliamentarians are granted immunity, they might simply abuse this right, which would become an unjustified burden that the local budget can ill-afford. They claim that this provision contradicts another legislative provision whereby parliamentarians are forbidden from “using their mandate in their own interests or for personal gain,” accepting payments or gifts, or being directly or indirectly rewarded for actions connected with the discharge of their parliamentary duties. To put it simply, the right to free housing and hotel accommodation could become another source of corruption. On the other hand, this may cause parliamentarians to become farther removed from voters. Their activities would become entirely concentrated in the autonomy’s capital, while the periphery would be left outside their attention. “I am certain that President Yushchenko will not sign a bill with such glaring contradictions and shortcomings, and will instead return it to parliament with his criticism. Once they are eliminated and the status of Crimean parliamentarians becomes logical and justified, Our Ukraine members will support it.”

EXPERT OPINION

Ihor LOSEV, assistant professor, Cultural Studies Department of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy National University:

“A regional authority may not have equal status with the central authority. Such attempts by Crimean parliamentarians have a long history. They were especially pronounced under Crimean President Yuriy Meshkov, when attempts were made to incorporate the status of a virtually independent country into the Crimean Constitution. As we know, the institution of the presidency was eliminated in the Crimea in the mid-1990s, but the very idea of the regional Crimean parliament’s status being equal to the national parliament is still alive in the minds of the openly separatist Crimean forces. The trend toward equating the status of Crimean parliamentarians with the status of Ukrainian parliamentarians represents quite a dangerous phenomenon, since after this they may be tempted to approve decisions that far exceed the competence of a regional authority.”