How to avoid civil strife

A few months ago Ukrainian sociologists warned that the economic crisis in Ukraine might radically aggravate the protest mood. This especially applied to the unemployed, those who had their wages delayed for months, and those who suffered from staff cuts. But Ukrainians are displaying inexhaustible patience, and analysts began to claim that people had adapted to the economic crisis. But the recent murder of villager Valerii Oliinyk in Kirovohrad oblast, which, according to pretrial investigation by the Prosecutor-General’s Office of Ukraine, was committed by former BYuT MP Viktor Lozynsky, former chief prosecutor of Holovaniv district, Kirovohrad oblast, Yevhen Horbenko, and former police chief of the same district Mykhailo Kovalsky, is what some social psychologists believe the Ukrainians will never forgive or forget. It is this kind of high-profile murders that may signal certain turning points in society and in public attitudes to the authorities.

One of the signals is attitude of the Ukrainians to parliamentary immunity. For instance, in early July 90 percent of those polled favored complete abolition of parliamentary immunity (almost 72 percent of the respondents are absolutely convinced that it is necessary and 18 percent are “almost convinced” of this). These are the results of a nationwide poll on the attitude of Ukrainians to the abolition of parliamentary immunity conducted by the Kyiv-based Horshenin Institute of Management Problems as part of the Country Project annual research program. Only 4.5 percent of the people oppose the complete abolition of immunity, out of which 2.7 believe that it is “perhaps unnecessary” to revoke this privilege, while 1.8 percent think this must not be done at all. The vast majority of the people – over 65 percent – believe that abolishing parliamentary immunity will help maintain law and order in this country, with a third of the polled being absolutely convinced in this and almost the same number of the respondents being “more or less convinced.” There are also quite a large number of skeptics: a quarter of the Ukrainian citizens, almost 26 percent, have the opposite point of view.

Obviously, the Ukrainians know only too well from where “the fish begins to rot:” if criminal cases are opened against high-placed officials who will eventually stand trial, the grassroots will also be able to seek justice in courts and in other governmental bodies. But it is also obvious that it will take more than one year or even several parliamentary convocations to abolish parliamentary immunity. For abolishing it means cutting down the bough on which the authorities sit. In a Channel 5 live program, MP Volodymyr Stretovych called the former People’s Deputy Lozynsky an “anti-people’s deputy.” But how many Losynsky-type deputies are now hiding under the Verkhovna Rada dome and providing themselves with legal protection?

COMMENTARIES

Viktor NEBOZHENKO, political scientist; director, Ukrainian Barometer sociological service:

“It is impossible now to strip parliamentarians of their immunity. Ukrainian parliamentarianism has established a very sound legal, social and political system of privileges for Ukrainian officials, especially Verkhovna Rada members. Each newly-elected parliament would introduce some new perks and privileges in housing, service, communications, state-sponsored tourism, etc., downgrading its obligations to the populace at the same time. Hence immunity and protection from the other branches of power, law-enforcement bodies, and the mass media. All this is part of the current MPs’ privileges. They may be publicly speaking about this or even passing some laws which they will say strip them of the immunity, but in reality there will always be some juridical loopholes that will keep people’s deputies from being prosecuted. They are not even playing in immunity abolition. They are playing when they try to create some kind of a ‘broad-based coalition,’ elect or dismiss the speaker – but this is a spin-control exercise in the already ongoing election campaign because the crisis has drastically aggravated the feeling of social and political injustice in all strata of the population. Naturally, parliament takes most of the flak in this kind of situation. This is why MPs are trying so hard to snatch the initiative from the public and the media, but this will not seriously weaken the MPs’ legal and political protection (I mean both current and former MPs) with respect to other strata, such as journalists, political scientists, peasants, factory workers, etc. They paid two million dollars per seat just in order to have this fence of privileges and protection. This will continue until a new generation comes, for whom values of democracy will be more important than those of criminal privatization. For, in reality, a people’s deputy is in bad need of legal protection: for example, he has stolen a factory, failed to pay off a credit, and so on. He bears the onerous burden of illegitimate property, so it is only natural that as long as he is an MP, he will be protecting his property. So the MPs will continue to take advantage of their juridical privileges until we do away with criminal privatization. It is not even about protecting MPs from bandits, it is about protection from the likes of them.”

Yurii SAIENKO, Doctor of Economics; chair, Department of Social Expert Examinations, Institute of Sociology, National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine:

“Ukraine has grown a special social caste protected with specific laws and guarantees of security. But there can be other kinds of security guarantees, without parliamentary immunity, for example, bodyguards. What does immunity mean? This is the sign of a caste system. This system exposes the underdeveloped nature of a society, for it breaks the laws of justice and equality. The situation needs to be changed, and ordinary people are very well aware of this and are taking a right attitude to the necessity of abolishing parliamentary immunity. As to what happened in Kirovohrad oblast, there are endless incidents of this kind. What about the recent murder of the public figure and journalist Oleksii Honcharov who defended Zhukiv Island? This must not be hushed up. Such crimes should be put in the same line – the crimes committed by not only MPs but by all bandits in general, who infringe human rights and suppress civil society. This question should be raised as seriously as possible. Everything depends on MPs. But what MPs are really doing is making their life comfortable. They consider themselves, not us, important because there is neither control nor a civil society. If at least the Cabinet and the President of Ukraine worked together, they would have some levers to influence the Verkhovna Rada. But they are not taking a common stand, so it is difficult to speak of their impact on the MPs. Hence, the Verkhovna Rada is doing what it pleases. One more thing. Parliamentary immunity can only be abolished if there is an effective judicial system (absolutely all elements of the existing sytem should be reformed). But the MPs are loath to do this. They find it very nice to live like this under this unreformed judicial system because, I will say it again, the ultimate goal of this caste in our society is to create comfortable living conditions for itself.”