The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on the 2nd of June, 2016 with a constitutional majority of 335 votes amended the Basic Law of Ukraine in part of justice. Under pressure from the president and hiding behind statements of the PACE and the Venice Commission, regarding the necessity of voting for judicial reform, the Parliament adopted amendments to the Law and changes to the Constitution in one day. We have already had such practice of adoption of bills, when the voting for the new law on the Prosecutor was held.
The European Party of Ukraine declares the inadmissibility of making any changes to the Constitution of Ukraine in conditions of war. The Article 157 of the Constitution of Ukraine states that “introducing amendments to the Constitution in the state of war are prohibited. Although the military aggression in the East has not been recognized as a war and the President refused to announce military situation, we believe that the country has all the prerequisites for its introduction.
No one can deny that part of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are beyond the control of Ukraine and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was annexed by Russia. Similarly, no one can deny that there were killed thousands of our soldiers and civilians on the front, and the country held more than one wave of mobilization. Ukraine is at war! And the President has repeatedly said that. So it can be argued about double standards of Poroshenko. He speculates on the theme of war for his own benefit.
Even a cursory analysis of the adopted changes points out that for the next two years the President receives the sole right to form the judiciary system and he actually becomes the head of the Supreme Court of Ukraine. In this way he becomes a monarch whom belong all power in the country, and the principle of checks and balances between the branches of government is grossly violated. Instead the Administration of President postponed for three years the ratification of the Rome Statute under false pretexts that may testify to a reluctance to expose the true punishment of war criminals of the military units of the self-proclaimed republics on the territory of Ukraine.
Now the new agenda of Bankova consists of the question of administrative reform under democratic slogan of “decentralization”, which will result in the completion of construction of the presidential vertical. He will receive local prefects and thus subordinate himself even mayors, elected by local communities, village heads. That is the aim of the current president, and this is what can bury democracy in Ukraine in the future.
However, we welcome the beginning of the professional discussion on reforms in the system of law in Ukraine, which applies to judicial reform. The European Party of Ukraine at the 11th congress in April this year adopted a resolution on the reform of law enforcement and judicial system of Ukraine. This paper of the party members outlined the main principles of the reform on the basis of best European practice. We are convinced that the reform of justice should abandon destructive populism and begin the real work of consistent, clearly focusing on fixed terms and European objectives of the reform.
The European Party of Ukraine expresses reservations about the main slogans of the pseudo reform – namely, the “cleaning the judiciary of corrupt judges”, that only aims to make the judiciary system dependent.
We believe that the adopted amendments to the Constitution and the Law on enforcement proceedings have nothing to do with real judicial reform. Instead, these amendments fix the right of Bankova to control judges and courts in manual mode.
The leader of the European Party of Ukraine
Mykola Katerynchuk