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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

President Favors Immunity for Volkov but Opposes it for Lawmakers

26 June, 1999 - 00:00

By Tetiana KOROBOVA, The Day

As is known, Verkhovna Rada has set up a parliamentary investigative commission
to inquire into Ukrainian high officials having illegal hard currency accounts
abroad. If we go by the official information that Belgian officials are
said to possess, the main personality of a new "parliamentary affair" is
the President's part time assistant, People's Deputy Oleksandr Volkov,
also the main actor in the President's reelection campaign.

Those who expected the President to play to the crowd by taking unusual
steps and displaying original thinking (for instance, all are equal before
the law, and the commission will look into this), have again found their
expectations dashed. Leonid Kuchma is predictable as always, clinging to
standards and working unimaginatively. UNIAN reports he said at a Zaporizhzhia
press conference that all executive bodies had been instructed not to cooperate
with the parliamentary commissions: "The executive branch views them as
nonexistent." And in general, according to the President, an ad hoc investigatory
commission should act by law, but Parliament deliberately fails to pass
a law on investigating commissions. Proceeding from this logic (no law,
no work), the President should have let his administration go on indefinite
leave. Or, at worst, dissolve his Domestic Policy Coordinating Council,
which Mr. Volkov heads at Mr. Kuchma's behest. But this is not the main
thing.

What the President stressed in front of the whole country is that he
will not let Parliament stick its collective nose into Mr. Volkov's affairs
in particular and into family affairs in general. The unique Lazarenko
case is only a showpiece whipping of apostates: either sin with the boss
or oppose him behind bars!

Thus, well before the investigative commission got down to work, the
President confirmed by his actions and statements that it could have "dug
out" something, so the only way to prevent it from doing so is to cover
his tracks by isolating the executive branch from contact with the inquisitive
legislators. The President is right in concluding that the investigative
commission is being used "for political struggle against political opponents."
It would only be strange if things were different.

In some very democratic and civilized countries, this purpose is served
by washing the dirty linen in public and have the whole country suddenly
look straight into the sun of their president's vitality. This is, of course,
excessive, but in our case the main question seems to remain in the shade
of the President's indignation over the parliamentary commission: are there
illegal accounts or not? Is the President surrounded by inveterate law-breakers
(or, as the Prosecutor-General said about the yet to be indicted Lazarenko,
"criminals"), or are they all crystal clean?

Mr. Kuchma said in Zaporizhzhia the he deeply respects deputies of all
levels, but adding, "However, we also know of many criminal deputies who
cover themselves with their parliamentary status." This was the President's
reaction to the Verkhovna Rada attempt to restore deputies' immunity on
the local level. We also know them, but there is still one more category:
those covered by power umbrellas.

The example of the Crimea, which made media headlines as a proof of
successfully combating crime after lifting immunity, was central at a police
conference attended by the President and is still being broadcast. If in
the Crimea, especially in Simferopol and Kerch, whole mobs and brigades
of criminal groupings found shelter in the city councils, this raises a
question: how did all those gentleman thieves get there en masse? Their
life stories were common knowledge, I myself wrote about them. But while
Voronok ("Little Raven") might kick open the door to Crimean Premier Franchuk's
office even before being elected a deputy, while at the premier's home
police and security chiefs had to sit at the same table with Raven and
various of his consorts, what does it have to do with legislative immunity?
While Kerch was Franchuk's fief and Franchuk was the father of the President's
daughter's husband, and Kerch was held by Little Raven's people, what is
the point of talking? The point is that, after starting to mop up Yalta
during the parliamentary election campaign, NDP and the Pustovoitenko government
overcame there the new economic policy structures controlled by Volkov
and connected with a certain grouping. This period coincided with the struggle
of Hrach against Franchuk for the Crimea. And only after the Crimean premier
was toppled and elected to the Ukrainian Parliament did his Kerch, which
had been his cadre powerhouse, crumble. It happened not in winter, when
immunity was lifted, but six month later. Let us recall how many high-sounding
statements Hrach made about the so-called criminal revolution before we
heard a series of sensational reports about the "quantitative" law enforcement
successes again in Kerch. Somehow I wonder how many requests were sent
by these agencies to the Simferopol and Kerch city councils to cancel the
immunity of locally elected criminals when Franchuk was in office?

Our President is very worried that the parliamentary attempt of "potential
presidential candidates to score points" might lead to the loss of these
points "in the eyes of the ordinary people who will go to vote on October
31." Mr. Kuchma does not seem to take into account that, just like he,
his opponent, the Speaker who raised the issue of restoring immunity, is
betting on those who "organize" voting, rather than the "ordinary people
who will go to vote." Because this is the country we have: "it does not
matter how they vote, what matters is how they count the votes." This,
however, is like beating one's head against a wall.

 

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