A precedent

Non-aligned MP Yurii Derevianko registered a resolution about dismissal and criminal prosecution of Constitutional Court judges. The reason for it is the illegal reenactment of the 1996 Constitution in 2010.

Firstly, Derevianko offers the Verkhovna Rada to fire six Constitutional Court judges elected by the parliamentary quota. “According to Article 126, Part 5, Paragraph 5 of the Constitution of Ukraine, the following judges shall be dismissed for violating the oath: justice of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Anatolii Holovin; Mykhailo Kolos; Maria Markush; Viacheslav Ovcharenko; Oleksandr Paseniuk; Petro Stetsiuk.”

The MP suggests the president and the Council of Judges of Ukraine take a similar step, dismiss the judges elected by their quotas, and appoint new ones.

And the most important point. The resolution seeks to authorize deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Koshulynsky to address the Prosecutor General within two days on behalf of parliament in the matter of starting criminal proceedings to check the actions of Constitutional Court judges for any signs of violating the laws.

This step, enhancing the judges’ accountability, is a challenge for the future. Judges have turned into a sort of untouchable figures in Ukraine, even though their activities and decisions affect the lives of all Ukrainians.

The first president of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk talked recently about the responsibility of Constitutional Court judges, in particular, for the current crisis. According to him, the Constitutional Court had no right to bring the Constitution of 1996 back into force in 2010.

The author of the resolution gives similar arguments on his Facebook page: “I am convinced that the state the country ended up in is a result of what the Constitutional Court judges did in 2010: they changed the Constitution in an unconstitutional way. They must be held criminally liable.”

“I also agree that the decision the Constitutional Court made in 2010 was an excess of the court’s powers,” says head of the Center for Political and Legal Reforms Ihor Koliushko. “By this decision, or at least the way it was implemented, the Constitution was changed. The Constitutional Court obviously had no authority to do that. What should be done in this situation? Our legislation does not give a direct answer to that. That is, there is no procedure to appeal or review the Constitutional Court’s decisions.”

Is it possible to hold the judges criminally liable? Do such mechanisms exist? “I think, we can talk about the responsibility of judges, but it is hard to prove all the aspects of their guilt in the context of criminal law,” Koliushko says. “It must be proven they exceeded their powers and this excess led to negative consequences. I think that the Prosecutor’s Office has a lot to do here. But there have been no precedents of this kind in Ukraine before. It would be a complicated trial, but the matter should be studied.”