Abolition of immunity: collisions
MP: “Without independent courts and effective law enforcement, we can get an imbalance of power, and this great idea will be completely discredited”
On February 5, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine took the first step in the direction of abolition of parliamentary immunity. In an atmosphere of almost complete consolidation 365 MPs voted for a resolution submitting to the Constitutional Court a bill with amending the Constitution, lifting the immunity of members of parliament and judges. Only one MP, Vadym Rabinovich (Opposition Bloc), voted against it, and another one, Anatolii Matviienko (BPP [Petro Poroshenko Bloc]) abstained.
There was also criticism. The Radical Party’s Ihor Mosiichuk stressed the need to work out an impeachment bill. Oleh Bereziuk, head of Samopomich, said he supported the resolution but emphasized the necessity of submitting the bill to the Venice Commission. Opposition Bloc and Economic Development, in a characteristically populist vein, said there were more important issues to deal with than the abolition of immunity.
In keeping with set procedures, the bill was forwarded to the Constitutional Court, to be reaffirmed as constitutional. After being validated, it will be returned to the VR and the MPs will put it to the vote during the next session scheduled for September 2015.
“The coalition agreement signed by five VR factions has a clause on the abolition of functional immunity,” MP Ruslan Sydorovych (Samopomich) told The Day. “However, I’d like to stress that we are actually lifting only parliamentary immunity. As for judicial immunity, we’re only replacing the body authorized to allow to detain and search judges – I mean the Higher Council of Justice instead of the pertinent VR committee.”
Mr. Sydorovych added that the bill should be finalized by adding an impeachment clause: “We must balance all branches of power against each other. Also, it is necessary to launch the interior ministry reform ASAP and complete the judicial reform. Without independent courts and effective law enforcement, we can get an imbalance of power, and this great idea will be completely discredited.”
He said that parliamentary immunity is not a decisive factor in bringing to justice the MPs who passed the ignominious January 16 bills, that to do so no changes have to be made in legislation: “One is left wondering about the Prosecutor General’s Office that hasn’t made a single move to lift the immunity of those who committed a crime against Ukrainian society a year ago.”
MP Ihor Lutsenko (Batkivshchyna) also believes the immunity bill is important: “Immunity must be lifted, but before doing so the courts of law must be made absolutely clean, the Prosecutor General’s Office independent, and so on. Hadn’t part of our parliament taken orders from the prime minister and the president, we would’ve had an alternative law abolishing immunity. As for judicial immunity, the judges will continue to determine whom to snatch from their ranks and throw to the law-enforcement wolves.”
Mr. Lutsenko insists that in the matter of lifting immunity the branches of power must be balanced: “The previous president ordered the Maidan shot to death, yet we keep presidential immunity. Our current head of state proposed to lift parliamentary immunity, thus making the MPs actually dependent on him… After this bill takes effect I can visualize myself taking the floor in parliament and declaring that Boiko has stolen some oil derricks, then standing trial for libel and slander while Boiko is warming his seat in parliament. Therefore, I regard this bill as ethically and morally wrong, let alone its functional disinterestedness. Why did parliament pass the bill? I voted for it because we are now passing through the ‘dark phases’ of adopting this document, allowing it to be assessed by European institutions and the Constitutional Court.”
